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PATRIOTISM. 



BY 



Hf W. BOLTON. 



Author of "HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE," Etc. 



INTRODUCTION BY 



COL JAMES A. SEXTON. 

Ml* 32 (890 1 A I 

CHICAGO : 

Published by Meyer & Brother, 
108 Washington Street. 



5^ 5 ! 
°^><-* 



TO 

The Lovers and Defenders of our Country, 

This volume is respectfully dedicated 

By the Author. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890, 

By HORACE W. BOLTON, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



PREFACE- 



The chapters composing this volume were delivered 
before patriotic organizations, from time to time, 
with no thought of publication. 

The field being so well occupied with patriotic 

literature, I have been slow to believe there was room 
for my contribution. But having been often urged to 
give them to the public in book form, I have yielded 
to the advice of friends. 

With this explanation, (not apology) I send them 
forth with a prayer that they may awaken a deeper and 
stronger love for the land in which we live, and for 
the preservation of which so much blood and treas- 
ure has been expended. 

H. W. Bolton. 



(iii.) 



INTRODUCTION. 



I have read with great profit the addresses embodied 
in this volume, and, after perusing them, felt as one of 
the millions who in 1861-65 showed their love for 
liberty and country. Every young man especially, 
whether native or foreign born, should read patriotic 
utterances, since otherwise he is apt to become in- 
different to the institutions to which he is indebted 
for the freedom he enjoys. The perpetuity of the 
Union depends upon the instruction given the young, 
for if inculcated in youth, patriotism will control the 
actions of manhood, in the event of peril to the 
Nation. The graphic account of what was accom- 
plished by the soldiers of the Republic ; their trials 
and tribulations ; the long and weary marches ; the 
exposure to heat and cold ; the hard-fought battles, 
cannot fail to be interesting to those who were active 
participants in the war for the preservation of the 
Government that it might be handed down unimpaired 
to future generations and left to their intelligent and 
watchful care. The fact should not be overlooked 
that a large part of our present population was born 
since the surrender at Appomattox. Their eyes never 

(v) 



VI. INTRODUCTION. 

beheld the Stars and Stripes until after the christening 
with the blood of our dead comrades, who sacrificed 
their lives as evidence that the flag really symbolized 
"Liberty to all men." Another large portion of the 
people, numbering millions, has come from foreign 
lands since 1865. It is the duty, therefore, of all in 
a position to do so, to instil into their minds senti- 
ments of loyalty to the Government which shelters 
and protects them, and affords them the same oppor- 
tunities in the race of life that are accorded the native 
citizen. 

My prayer is that the God of the living and the 
dead may bless your efforts to foster the spirit of 
patriotism, and thus aid in the continuance of the 
grandest Republic on the face of the earth. 

Yours in F. C. and L., 

James A. Sexton. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Chapter I. Centennial, - 1 

II. Fallen Heroes, - .. - 24 

III. General Grant, 42 

IV. " Logan, 56 
V. " Sheridan, - - - - 10 

VI. The Soldier's Attitude, - 87 

VII. Red Lights, - 102 

VIII. " « .... 109 

IX, " " -■--'-- 122 

X. America for Americans, - - 133 

XL Schools, - - - - - 148 

XII. Education, - - =■ - 156 

XIII. Our Inheritance, - 168 

XIV " " --.'-- 182 

XV. " " - - 199 

XVI. Nations Without the Bible, • 212 



(vii.) 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Col. James A. Sexton. 

Postmaster at Chicago. 

H. W. Bolton. 
Gex. IT. S. Grant. 
Gex. John A. Logan. 
Implements of War. 
George Washington, 

Father of his Country. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
Flag. 



(viii.) 



And yet there's another country, still vaster than all these; 
Encrowned by lofty mountain chains, and washed by mighty 

seas; 
No bigotry of worship holds her conscience in duress, 
No mystery veils her altars, no censor curbs her press; 
With her women of the fairest that bloom beneath the sky, 
With her soldiers of the boldest that ever dared to die, 
With her flag, in glory, spreading o'er the earth and o'er the 

sea, 
Like a portent to the tyrant, like a rainbow to the free ; 
With the nations flowing toward her, as to a promised rest— 
This, this, of all the lands I saw, is the land I loved the best: 

— Ever hart. 



(x.) 



PATRIOTISM. 



CHAPTER I. 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS.* 

This is an eventful hour in the history of a great 
nation — a moment, into which is crowded an hun- 
dred years of constitutional life, with success suf- 
ficient to demand the suspension of business, the 
ringing of bells, the booming of cannon, the chant- 
ing of choirs, and the best efforts of the public 
speaker. 

We meet as Americans and patriots, sixty mil- 
lion strong, to unfurl the stars and stripes over a 
blossoming earth and beneath a smiling heaven. To 
us this flag is the emblem of liberty, equal rights 
and national unity. 

As patriots we have reason, on this fourth day of 
July, 1889, to rejoice, and to make some public dem- 
onstration of our love of native land. Great love 
for native land is strong among all nations, even 
causing the natives of Asiatic islands, on beholding 
a banana tree in the public gardens of Paris to be so 

^Delivered at Aurora, 111., July 4, 1889. 



2 PATRIOTISM. 

stirred as to baptize the plant with tears; and 
even the Esquimaux becomes so wedded to the 
frigid zone of his native land as to think the blubber 
and ice cabin preferable to the gifts of more en- 
lightened nations and refined society. But why 
does the heart so tenaciously cling to that spot on 
earth where first it learned to live ? And we answer, 
it is because of the friendships and blessings which 
were all the world to us. But true patriotism is 
more than that, for there are and always have been, 
true patriots who were born on other shores. 

The nations waited for the history of our own 
country to develop the patriotism that should make 
the sons of all climes and all lands one in defense of 
the institutions of a free republic. 

We go not back into ancient history for illustra- 
tions of true patriotism. Tell us not of the Persian 
invaders who entered Greece. Speak not to-day of 
the heroism displayed at Marathon, for we have 
heard of Bunker Hill, Lexington, Princeton, Shiloh, 
Fair Oaks, Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain and 
Richmond. We have read of, and learned to admire, 
the spirit of patriotism displayed during the war of 
the Rebellion by the gunner Wood, on board the 
Cumberland, while in combat with the Merrimac in 
Chesapeake Bay, who, having lost both legs and 
arms, and being offered assistance, as his ship was 
going down with her flag still flying, cried out: 
"Back to your guns, boys; give 'em fits! Hurrah 
for the flag !" We have seen more than a half -mil- 



PATRIOTS. 6 

lion men leave the shops, mines and schools of our 
land to fight for the maintenance of liberty and 
equal rights, believing that our only safety was in 
unity; and in the spirit of Washington, have watched 
with jealous anxiety the union of the States, believ- 
ing it to be of infinite moment, discountenancing 
every suspicion or suggestion of division. In the 
days of Abraham Lincoln, being citizens by birth 
and by adoption, we said, "Amen," to his proclama- 
tion, and went forth to save the Union, " Constitu- 
tion or no Constitution." 

We glory in the spirit of Lieut. Cummings, who, 
while gliding up the Mississippi river and passing 
the Vicksburg batteries, had one leg torn from him 
by a rebel ball, but refused help, and said, ' ' Get the 
ship past the batteries, boys, and they can have the 
other leg if they want it. " Such is the patriotism 
of American history. 

In the fiery furnace of war men have learned to 
love this their native and adopted home more than 
all others. Yes, the stubborn Englishman, the 
heroic Scotchman, the enthusiastic Irishman, the 
hearty German and the fun-loving Frenchman join 
in singing: 

My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing. 
Land where my fathers died; 
Land of the Pilgrims' pride; 
From every mountain side 

Let Freedom ring. 



4 PATRIOTISM. 

There are good reasons for the strength of our patri- 
otism. This is a home-land; a land in which all may 
find protection in the exercise of a good conscience. 
Territorially we have room for all who desire to 
come and share with us. Should China and India 
conclude to move over with their seven hundred 
millions, we need have no fear. 

We leave the first centennial round of the ladder 
of progress, with a population of more than sixty 
millions, thus ranking among the first nations on the 
globe. In less than a century we may lead all. Our 
population is at least twenty times as great as it was 
one hundred years ago; but of course we cannot cal- 
culate upon the same rate of increase for the next 
century. 

Relatively, there will be a decrease in the number 
of immigrants, as it is quite probable that the spirit 
of enterprise or the love of adventure will carry 
away the successors of our frontier population to 
Africa and South America, as the continents of the 
future. 

At the present rate of increase our population in 
the year 2000 will exceed eight hundred millions; 
but if the lowest estimates are used as a basis for 
calculation, the beginning of the twenty-first century 
will show an aggregate population of about two 
hundred and eighty millions. 

Whether so vast a population can be sustained 
within our present limits is a problem for the future; 
but for one 1 entertain no doubt that the sustaining 



NATIONAL ABILITY. 5 

power of the United States will be adequate to the 
support of a population of one billion, without any 
impairment of the enjoyments and comforts of so- 
cial and domestic life. 

If we assume that the habitable area of the 
states is two million, five hundred thousand square 
miles, an average population of three hundred to the 
square mile would give an aggregate of seven hun- 
dred and fifty million souls. 

Our capacity may be further measured by con- 
sidering the fact that if the present inhabitants of 
the United States could be transferred to Texas, the 
average would not exceed three hundred persons to 
the square mile. 

These facts do not in any way measure or limit 
the possibilities of comfortable existence, for this 
reason: The diversity of human pursuits, due to 
science, art and a wise public policy, is making 
a constant and appreciable addition to the capacity 
of the country to sustain human life. 

The sixty millions within our borders are better 
fed, better clothed and better housed than were the 
three millions who inaugurated the Eevolutionary 
war. It is not improbable that this progress may 
continue for a long and indefinite period. We have 
thus in oue hundred years rushed to the foremost 
rank in population, wealth and annual savings; and 
we leave behind the nations of the earth on this our 
centennial celebration. Nearly as many English- 
speaking people dwell on these shores as in all the 



6 PATRIOTISM. 

world beside. In public credit, in agriculture and 
manufactures, America leads the civilized world. 
Her territory is not half occupied. 

To-day we have in wealth forty-five billions, and 
our annual manufactures amount to one billion, one 
hundred and twelve million pounds sterling, or 
nearly half as much as all Europe. 

Float on, our flag ! Beneath thy folds the wealth 
of numberless millions awaits the coming of unborn 
generations. 

Again, this rapid growth does not endanger the 
nation's wealth, for God has stored in the hills and 
along the prairies immeasurable wealth in crude 
forms. Two hundred years have just consumed 
the underbrush, while the grand old forests of 
timber remain growing faster to-day than we cut 
and burn. 

The lead, zinc, copper, tin, silver and gold are 
but a matter of search: the best and largest quanti- 
ties are not yet reached. The materials for quarry- 
ing, smelting and coining are still in large quanti- 
ties. The sunshine of other days, when beast and 
bird occupied the land, is now buried in Pennsyl- 
vania, Mississippi and Arkansas in 160,000 square 
miles of condensed light and power, and God hath in 
these last days shown us how to set the current on 
fire all about us. 

Drive on, ye men of thought ! Build your mag- 
azines, harness the steeds of the sky. We have 
minerals and power sufficient to make this nation the 



city of gold, with pearly gates and foundations of 
precious stones. 

Our freightage surpasses that of Great Britain, 
France and Italy. Pennsylvania, with her railroad 
system, transports more tonnage than all Great Brit- 
ain's merchant ships. And yet there is a demand 
for more railroads to do the work of that State. 

Our flag floats over a land that is more beautiful 
than any other. Behold her rivers, placid and tur- 
bulent, threading the prairies of the West. What 
other land has a city like Chicago, a thousand miles 
inland, with wharves where ships from all parts of 
the earth may lie. Thus described: " I have been 
in Chicago six weeks. I shall take a look at it after 
awhile, when this feeling of stupidity, produced by 
amazement, partially wears off. But I shall not de- 
scribe it. I am not writing books just now. If the 
Palace hotel, the Flood building, the new Chronicle 
building, the Baldwin, the Nevada block and all the 
palaces on Nob Hill were suddenly lifted up and set 
down in the midst of Chicago in one night, they 
would not be noticed next morning- — unless they 
were set down in the middle of the streets, so as to 
interfere with traffic. Miles and miles of Flood 
buildings, groups of Baldwin theatres, townfuls of 
Nob Hill palaces, whole streets of new Chronicle 
buildings, innumerable Occidental hotels, all the ele- 
gant dry goods stores of San Francisco merged into 
one and then reduplicated till you are weary; all its 
restaurants rolled into one and multiplied until 3011 



8 PATRIOTISM. 

are faint; cable cars going in trains like steam cars, 
with three conductors on each train; four elevators 
in a group, and no use ringing, because one or two 
pre constantly ready to carry you up, or bring you 
down; morning papers, noon papers, evening papers 
and extras at midnight: a hundred miles of asphalt 
driveways for pleasure; innumerable streets, so long 
and brilliantly lighted that, standing at any point on 
one of them at night, you will see the parallel rows of 
lights come to a point in either direction, making the 
street look like a long, narrow diamond, granite, mar- 
ble, brass, glass, colored crystals, electric lights, gor- 
geousness, brilliance, luxuriousness, magnificence — 
Chicago.'' A ship starting from New Orleans and 
going up the Mississippi and through her tributaries 
will sail more miles, and go through a greater va- 
riety of scenery, with more that is truly beautiful, 
than is found in a voyage around the globe. 

Fly over this grand western world, and look on 
acres in rolling splendor, voiced with vegetation that 
bloome and blossoms like the rose. 

Then turn to your mountain peaks, where eternal 
snows crown their slopes, and ice jewels their brows, 
and Switzerland will grow insipid and small. She 
might sit in all her Alpine splendor in the lap of 
Pennsylvania, as a toy for her children. 

Then through your valleys hasten east over mighty 
lakes, to see the granite hills and mountains, scat- 
tered by an Omnipotent hand, to beautify the land- 
scape, and for the use of man. 



A FREE FEOPLE. 9 

Friends, tell me not of scenes of beauty beyond 
the ocean, until I have seen the mountains and val- 
leys of New England, the western prairies, the south- 
ern valleys and Pacific slopes. 

Tell me not of Africa's coral-bound shores until I 
shall have seen our own mountains put on their 
autumn robes and snow-white crowns, or shall have 
breathed the balm of Florida's groves. 

This flag is the emblem of freedom. We are a 
free people, and no intelligent man lives among us 
who will attempt to defend a system of slavery of 
any kind. 

A well-known judge, attempting to convince a 
fugitive slave that he had made a mistake, put the 
following questions to him: "What did you run 
away for?" "Well, judge, I wanted to be free." 
"You had a bad master, I suppose?" "Oh, no, 
berry good mas'r." "Well you hadn't a good 
home ? " "Hadn't I ? You should see my pretty 
cabin in Kentucky." "Had to work hard, then ? " 
"Oh, no, fair day's work." "Well, then, if you 
had plenty to eat, was not overworked, had a good 
home, I don't see what on earth you wanted to run 
away for." "Well, Massa Judge, I 'spect the situ- 
ation am still open, if yo' would like it." 

The judge did not apply for the position, but be- 
came a convert to abolition, and gave the fugitive a 
five dollar bill, to help him on his way to the land 
of freedom. 



10 PATRIOTISM. 

Up, all who strike for Freedom's cause ! 

Send forth the thrilling battle cry; 
Quick to the fight— no time to pause— 

The choice is death or victory; 
Give freedom to the toiling slave, 

Or sleep within a warrior's grave. 

Thank God for tho songs of freedom ! 

Again, this is a land of schools and churches. A 
man cannot escape their influence if he would. As 
soon as a mother can trust her boy from her pres- 
ence, the bell calls him to school. One hundred and 
ninety-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-four 
schools open their doors to all classes of all nation- 
alities, at an expense of $74,400,(100 annually, and 
the land is flooded with aids to progress. Our pub- 
lications are literally beyond computation, and the 
educational influences of the day are covering the 
hills with blessings all divine. 

Equality ! Once enrolled as a citizen of this 
country, we may go forth hoping to win any posi- 
tion in the gift of the nation, with ten thousand 
agencies awaiting our coming, which offer their un- 
sought council and energy to urge us on our way. 
With us success is privileged. The humblest child 
from the most obscure home under the flag of our 
Union has an equal right to that patronage which 
should make him great among men. Of us Lord 
Bacon spoke when he said: "It remaineth for God 
and angels to be lookers on." Eor in an American 
race every man has a right to lead and a chance to 
rule. Birth and age are ruled out. Votes bring in. 



MEN HONORED. 11 

The slab houses of the East and the log huts of the 
West are still honored, for out from these come the 
boys with convictions and a mother's blessing, to 
take the positions of honor and trust. We look 
back on the men whom we have honored, and we 
speak of Washington, not as a scholar, but as a man 
of force and will such as gave him character and 
standing; of Jackson as the fighter who overruled a 
mother's wish, for she desired that he should preach. 
He would not, but fight he would, and, passing 
through the darkness of 1813, he lived on hickory 
nuts, and would not die uncrowned. Had he failed 
in his election, with the old Jews I should be 
tempted to seek his grave, as they sought John's, 
to see if the earth still moved over him, and if he 
still expected to be President. 

Abraham Lincoln, of our own State, rose to shake 
off the snow that sifted through the chinks of his 
father's cabin, and became the honored bead of this 
great nation. He stirs our hearts to-day as do few 
men in American history. 

What shall we say of our peerless Grant, our 
scholarly Sumner, able Greeley, heroic Garfield, 
brave and patriotic Sherman, Logan and Sher- 
idan, and a long list of other noble men, whose 
names are interwoven with the history of our 
country? 

None of them had opportunity such as is offered 
to the average son of '89, but, entering into life to 
employ the trinity of manhood and the indomitable 



12 PATRIOTISM. 

energy of the true American, they were bound to 
rise by force of their own character. 

This is emphatically a land of industry. With- 
out work we cannot succeed. It matters not so 
much what a man does, so long as it be legitimate 
employment and is well done. Here this lesson is 
taught as under no other form of government. 

Go visit the halls, look on the orchestra. What 
part is most essential ? The leading violinist, who 
with his nimbleness attracts most attention or the 
director who with baton in hand gives direction to 
rhythm and expression ? What of that man swinging 
those heavy sticks and beating that unsightly drum ? 
Is he of no importance ? Certainly he is. He marks 
the time, gives character and support to the melody, 
and is indispensable to the orchestra. 

So in life, we are often more interested and give 
most attention to those preparing for the pulpit or 
for the practice of law, or medicine. Heaven 
knows we need a better class of lawyers, doctors 
and ministers, but that is not enough. We need 
better producers and more of ther 

If the principles of the fathers be maintained and 
the loyalty of the sons continue, the old flag is yet 
to float over wealth, honor and beauty such as his- 
tory has never known. 

Therefore it becomes the true patriot to know of 
the dangers as well as the glories of his home land. 

What are the dangers that threaten the American 
republic most? 



DANGER OF WEALTH. 13 

I should place as chief among the foes that of 
wealth. 

I see vastly more clanger from our wealth than 
from our poverty. Mr. Webster once said, after 
traveling through the vast territory of the West: 
"I see before us abundance, luxury, decay and dis- 
solution." 

It requires no great study of history to see that 
abundance leads to luxury and extravagance, and 
that extravagance begets recklessness, idleness and 
vice. It was so with Greece and Rome. In the 
days of Marcus Aurelius Rome became very wealthy, 
and increased in riches until any governor could 
make himself rich in a year, but they spent their 
money in a way that led to vice, until the kingdom 
became corrupt, and died of its own shame. 

Our wealth is becoming so great as to attract the 
attention of the whole world. Our gold and silver 
mines produce $100,000,000 annually; other mines 
and factories, $500,000,000; while our railroads add 
$250,000,000, and the agricultural interests more 
than $7,256,000,000. 

Every sunrise adds $25,000,000 to our wealth as 
a nation, and men who love money are hastening to 
our shores, where the opportunity for wealth exists. 

It is said on good authority that we have wealth 
in our soil this side of Alaska sufficient to feed 900,- 
000,000 people, and then export 5,000,000,000 
bushels of grain annually. 

Then we turn our thoughts to the wealth under 



ltt PATRIOTISM. 

the soil. Between 1870 and 1880 our product in 
precious metals amounted to $732,000,000. The 
United States furnishes more than one-half of the 
gold and silver of to-day, and it is not unreasonable 
to expect that our agricultural resources alone, when 
fully developed, will be capable of feeding two bil- 
lions of people. Truly has Matthew Arnold said: 
"America holds the future." These facts are truly 
wonderful. Our property is valued at more than 
$50,000,000,000— more than enough to buy the Rus- 
sian or the Turkish empire, and the kingdoms of 
Sweden and Norway, Denmark and Italy, together 
with Australia. Great Britain is by far the richest 
nation of the Old World, and yet our wealth ex- 
ceeds hers by over $5,000,000,000. This is found 
in material the quantity of which may be multiplied 
by hundreds of millions. Well may Mr. Gladstone 
say, "The United States will probably become the 
head servant and the great household of the world, 
the employer of the employed, because her servants 
will be the most and ablest." 

These facts are not calculated to win or entice the 
best class of society. The immigration of the last 
decade is not what it was thirty or forty years ago. 
Then they came to our country to find a home where 
liberty and freedom from religious restraints and 
persecutions were promised. They came with prayer 
and hymn-books. As when Columbus, first touch- 
ing the soil, with cross in hand, knelt to kiss the 
earth and offer praise unto God, so the Pilgrims of 



I3IMIGRATION. 15 

Plymouth Rock walked on their knees for months 
in devout reverence before God, who had guided 
them over the trackless sea. But to-cla}^ Germany 
sends her hungry, and other lands, learning the art 
of Bismarck in solving the problem of poverty, are 
transferring their poor, with the idea that here lib- 
erty means license. A friend of mine, writing from 
New York, says: "Again and again have I seen 
hundreds of people swarm out of ships from Ham- 
burg, Liverpool, Dublin and other ports, without 
food or shelter, without money to buy a meal of 
victuals or a night's lodging. I have seen them taken 
directly from the ship to the almshouse.'* Such 
persons do not understand our institutions and can- 
not appreciate them. They do not know our laws, 
and are therefore unable to intelligently observe 
them, but are here to practice their devices, in view 
of gratifying their own passions and appetites. Let 
me say once and with emphasis, that all who come 
are not of this class. There are grand specimens of 
mankind from all shores in our midst. They have 
an abiding welcome to all the privileges our institu- 
tions afford, but a large percentage are here to man- 
ufacture our rum. 

According to the census of 1880 there are 3,152 
establishments where rum is manufactured, and 
$118,000,000 dollars is invested in this business; 33,- 
689 men are employed as day laborers, and they are 
paid $15,000,000 annually, and the net value of their 
annual production is $111:, 000, 000. Adding the 



16 PATRIOTISM. 

mone}' invested and the wages of the workmen, and 
the income, we have the enormous aggregate of 
$277,000,000. Of the 50,000 men employed in our 
distilleries as distillers, 40,000 of them are foreign- 
ers; and they are also running our saloons. Take 
the business directory of any of our cities, or 
walk the streets of Chicago, New York or Boston, 
and you will find very few Americans in the saloon 
business. If there, they are ashamed to put their 
signs out. Attend a saloon-keepers' convention or 
read in the morning papers a list of the officers. 
Glance over the programme for the day. Go to the 
hall, see who is president, who are the vice-presi- 
dents; they are nearly all foreigners. To be more 
accurate, take Philadelphia, that old Quaker city. 
There are 8,034 persons in the rum traffic, and who 
are they ? Chinamen 2, Jews 2, Italians 18, Span- 
iards 140, Welsh 160, French 285, Scotch 495, En- 
glish 586, Germans 2,179, Irishmen 3,041, Africans 
265, Americans 205. Of this number 3,696 are 
females, all foreigners but one. We are bound to 
look this thing squarely in the face, for, as Mr. 
Gladstone recently said in the House of Commons, 
"We suffer more year by year from intemperance 
than from war, pestilence and famine combined, 
and this scourge, resulting in ruin and death, is car- 
ried on largely by foreigners/' 

Our second great danger, it appears to me, is that 
of indifference to the claims of the government. As 
a general proposition, every man claiming home and 



INDIFFERENCE OF CITIZENS. 17 

protection in a republic should become familiar with 
the laws and institutions of his home and identify 
himself with their supporters. Suffrage to-day 
means more than it ever did before. The elements 
to be controlled and the influences to be directed were 
never so potent as to-day; and yet this is no longer 
a government for the people or run by the people, 
but for the few, to be run by the few, and in this is 
danger. Too many stay away from the polls, cau- 
cuses and conventions, and we are too largely guided 
by the thoughts of a few leaders. These stay-away 
men are the curse of the land. They are not for- 
eigners but Americans, who complain that their con- 
victions are not frialy represented or expressed. In 
1880 the entire foreign vote was 1,200,000, while 
the registered voters who failed to appear at the 
polls numbered 4,000,000. Where w T ere these men 
to be found ? Eighty thousand of them in old Ohio, 
sons of the Buckeye State; 280,000 in New York; 
195,000 in Pennsylvania. What an army of men to 
fail in time of duty, and the failure to appear in the 
preliminary caucuses is still worse. In New York 
City in 1885 there were 260,000 voters; only 25,000 
of whom appeared in the preliminary caucuses, leav- 
ing 235,000 men who failed to appear in the hour of 
New York's emergency. 

In a republic like this, and in a great city like 
New York, where every man is a prince, and eter- 
nal vigilance is the price of liberty, certainly the 
voters ought to feel that the interest at the polls is 



18 PATKI0T1SM. 

paramount to all other interests on the day of the 
election. 

The third great danger, as it appears to me, is the 
sectional feeling that is growing up in this country, 
the creating of new Swedens, Africas, Irelands, Ger- 
manys and Englands. This is all wrong. We want 
one people, one language, one spirit throughout the 
land. Mr. Thomas did us great harm, not inten- 
tionally, but really, when he went abroad to intro- 
duce a new Sweden into this country. For with 
this comes the secret life and plots of the nations 
represented, and anything that strikes against the 
life of our institutions, or the principles upon which 
they are laid, is dangerous, and cannot with safety 
be tolerated. We make no war upon churches or 
religious convictions. Every man has a right to be 
a Methodist, a Presbyterian or a Roman Catholic. 
But palsied be the hand raised to strike at, or the 
tongue moved to declare against, our American insti- 
tutions ! 

We cannot tolerate sectional feeling in this country. 
The flag must be the emblem of liberty, equal rights 
and national unity to every man everywhere. "A 
star for every State and a State for every star." I 
hope the day will speedily come when no other flag 
can with safety be unfurled on these shores. Let 
the stars and stripes float on all occasions and for all 
interests, from sea to sea. Down in the State of 
Maine a ver} r ignorant backwoodsman, having ren- 
dered some service to the Governor, was sent a com- 



A COMMISSION. 19 

mission as justice of the peace. He took it out of 
the post-office, looked it over, and, being unable to 
read it, became alarmed. He thought it a warrant 
against him for some crime, but was soon told that 
it was a commission. "What am I to do with it ?" 
said he. "Why, you are to solemnize marriages, 
and in time of a riot you are to say, "In the name 
of the State of Maine I command order, and that 
you disperse to your homes." Not long after, this 
justice of the peace was in the city of New York, 
and, walking down Broadway, he encountered an 
immense mob. He at once thought of his commis- 
sion, and, stepping upon the curbstone, cried out: 
"In the name of the State of Maine, I command 
order, and that you disperse to your homes." In 
less than a minute he was knocked senseless and 
carried to the lockup. On being brought before the 
court he answered that he was a justice of the peace 
down in Maine, and produced his papers. A laugh 
went around the court room, and then the judge ex- 
plained that he had no prerogative or rights outside 
the State of Maine. On returning to his home a 
couple waited upon him to be married. He married 
them, and, after pronouncing them husband and 
wife, he said: "Now, this is all right so long as you 
live in the State of Maine, but should you ever ven- 
ture outside the State, this ceremony is not binding." 
Not so with the dear old flag. Its silken folds 
bring the same blessings of peace and protection to 
the dwellers on the rock-bound shores of old Maine 



20 PATRIOTISM. 

or to the sun-kissed slopes of California, as to the 
dwellers on the ever-green shores of Florida, and the 
snow-clad hills of Alaska. 

It is six thousand miles from the fisheries of the 
Pine Tree State to the shores of our great American 
ice house; and every foot of these six thousand 
miles is represented by the stars and stripes. 
The union of lakes, the union of lands, 
The union of States none can sever; 
The union of hearts, the union of hands, 
And the flag of our union for ever. 

The union is river, lake, ocean and sky; 
Man breaks not the medal when God cuts the die. 
Though -darkened with sulphur, though cloven with steel, 
The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal. 

There is still hope for the republic; though evils 
exist, they are soon crushed. Anarchists are 
hanged, boodlers imprisoned, and our murderers, 
though their deeds be perpetrated in high-sounding 
institutions, must flee or swing. The safeguards of 
the nation are to be strengthened by perpetuating 
our institutions. 

First: That of our homes, which measure the na- 
tion's strength more largely than any other; they are 
institutions of learning out of which come the na- 
tion's guards. To-day we have the largest standing 
army on the face of the earth, because the work is 
done in the homes. I do not mean the regular army; 
I mean the standing army made up of 60,000,000 
people, ready at a moment's call to spring into line 
for the nation's defense. 



OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 21 

If you would destroy the seeds of socialism and 
anarchy, encourage the home-building associations 
of this country. 

For when a man has a home and owns his house, he 
is no longer a socialist or an anarchist. He believes 
in protection and law, because he wants to be pro- 
tected. Philadelphia, through the Home Building 
Associations, has helped 50,000 men to own their 
homes. What is the result ? They have neither 
strikes or boycotting. 
"Man has many a passage through which he loves to roam, 

But the middle aisle is sacred to the old, old home." 

Let us see to it that we do our part in making 
home an institution for the training of Americans, 
by helping them to that cheer, sunshine and health 
that belongs to an American. 

Secondly: Let us see to' it that our schools are 
well provided for. We must not simply look after 
the illiteracy of our country. Our public -school sys- 
tem, guarded and protected, will remove all illiteracy, 
and destroy the possibility of breeding hoodlums. 
I hope the day will soon come when every school 
shall be not only a hall of learning, but a center of 
patriotism, in which every boy and girl shall be so 
fully imbued with love of country as to become a 
true defender of the Constitution of the United States 
of America, cheerfully obedient to the laws of the 
land, encouraging purity and honor in public affairs, 
and loyally defending the flag. Then the 198,000 
rooms into which are gathered daily more than 



22 PATRIOTISM. 

18,000,000 boys and girls will become centers of 
power, forbidding the possibility of insurrection or 
rebellion. 

I know my Catholic friends do not see this in this 
light. We make no war upon Catholicism, but will 
not quietly suffer any institution, be it Catholic or 
pagan, to lay hands on this institution established 
by our fathers. 

See to it that such work is done in the schools, as 
shall forbid the possibility of sectarian schools sup- 
planting them. 

Thirdly: The church of this country is becoming 
more and more the educator of patriots. In olden 
times it was said of a Jewish ruler: u He hath loved 
our nation and builded us a synagogue." The 
church is not an institution of any party. It is not 
her prerogative to become in any sense partisan, but 
she is to send forth statesmen, patriots. In her must 
center all the great forces. To-day she is the power 
of all others. In the great wars she has played well 
her part. Here the singing of songs, the offering of 
prayer around one common altar, is doing more to 
make us one, than any other exercise known to men; 
for sentiments woven into the spirit of melody can 
never be eradicated. 

Who can measure the opportunity this hour sets 
before the young man or woman with health, culture 
and high ideals. 

I turn to the dawn of the twentieth century. The 
camp-smoke of the pioneer flees before the burning 



A NEW TEMPLE. 23 

rays of intelligence; dogmas no longer clog the feet 
of the racer, and the imaginary line no longer binds 
the thought of man. Then shall be builded a tem- 
ple, whose dome shall shade the seas, into which 
shall be brought the achievements of art, science and 
religion, and out of which shall come an inspiration 
and love that in their influence shall make us more 
than conquerors in Him who loved us, and called us 
to be kings and priests unto the most high Grod. 

The fields are white to harvest, 

The days are speeding by; 
Go forth again, ye workers, 

And work until ye die. 

Yea, the night of death approaches, 

And angels in the sky 
Repeat the chorus ever — 

Go, work, and never die. 



For those no death bed's lingering shade; 

At Honor's trumpet call, 
With knitted brow and lifted blade, 

In Glory's arms they fall. 

— Holmes. 

Upon a nations grateful heart, 

They're written down by memory's pen; 
And time shall never dare erase 

The deeds of patriotic men. 

Barker. 

Let holy tears bedew the graves 

Of those who fell in fight; 
Let marble stones above their bones, 

Salute the morning light; 
Let History write in golden books; 

Let bards with song enshrine; 
Let women chant the name of Grant, 

And the glory of the Line ! 

— Everhart. 

Gashed with honorable scars, 

Low in Glory's lap they lie; 
Though they fell, they fell like stars 

Streaming splendor through the sky. 

— Montgomery. 



(xi.) 



FALLEN HEROES 



CHAPTER II. 

* 

A nation is at the graves of her soldiers, in com- 
memoration of their faithfulness.* 

Coming from the busy walks of life to cemetery 
and field, with reverence for the heroic dead, and 
gratitude for the patriotic living, we bring a wreath 
of cypress for the graves of those whose lips are 
sealed — who answer no more to the roll-call among 
the living — and speak a word to those more fortu- 
nate, who fought a good fight, kept a sacred faith, 
won a glorious victory, and live to fight the battles 
of a free and ever-growing people. 

We come to linger amid these graves, which 
arc not simply houses for the dead, but vaults in 
which the nation's power, fame and glory are stored. 
They are still centers of poAver in cemetery, church- 
yard, lonely lawns, groves and national fields, beau- 
tified and indicated by shafts and slabs, deserted, 
forgotten, and covered with turf, visited for the first 
time for a year — visited by friends with loving 
hearts, and by angels, at the hand of the winds. 
See them coming from the hillside and valley, from 
hot-house and conservatory; coming with flowers — 

*Oration delivered at Galva, 111., Decoration Day, 1886. 
(24) 



OUK HONORED DEAD. 25 

flowers gathered, selected, cultivated; flowers, 
"nature's sw T eetest gifts" and choicest offerings. 

There are newly-made graves, into which many 
of our most honored comrades have stepped since 
last we met. They were brave, gallant and peerless, 
but they have passed the Appomattox of life. Those 
who were: 

"The pillar of a people's hope, 
The center of a world's desire." 

They have exchanged the corruptible for incor- 
ruption, mortality for immortality, and joined 
Moses and Joshua, Wellington and Cromwell, 
Lincoln and Garfield, and that innumerable throng, 
"whose death was a poem, the music of which can 
never be sung. " Alas ! 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Await alike the inevitable hour; — 
The path of glory leads but to the grave. 

Every heart in this broad land ought to respond 
to the call of our commander, and enter into the ser- 
vice of this hour with the same zeal and enthusiasm 
that characterized the days of enlistment, and the or- 
ganization of the armies out of which these men 
have fallen. 

Other lands have had heroes, but ours were more 
— they were saviours, and by their sacrifices have 
saved the greatest land under the shining sun. 

If we glance at the fields upon which great battles 
have been fought and where great wars have been 



26 PATRIOTISM. 

waged, we gain an idea of the immensity of our con- 
flict. In the battles of Napoleon 6,000,000 brave 
men fell. In the thirty years' war of Germany 12,- 
000,000 men bit the dust. In the war under Sesos- 
tris no less than 15,000,000 were slain. In the Jus- 
tinian wars 20,000,000 men never returned to tell the 
story. In the Jewish wars more than 25,000.000 were 
slain. In the crusades led by Peter the Hermit and 
others, it is estimated that 80,000,000 fell. In Rus- 
sian wars historians say 180,000,000 did not live 
through the contests in which they were engaged; 
and if we could see all who have fallen in battle, 
marshalled on this earth, they would outnumber the 
present population again and again. Some statisti- 
cians say if they were stood side by side, they would 
reach around this globe 1,788 times. 

But our actual field of battle was larger than the 
fields upon which any of these wars were waged. 
It seemed as if the world trembled in the wars of 
Cromwell; but our field was larger than all the 
British Isles combined. Wellington touched upon 
the shores of Spain; but Spain, including the Canary 
Islands, is but a little more than half as large as 
Texas. France was a field of war; but France is 
but little larger than Maryland and California. In 
the mighty wars of Italy the world shook; but all 
Italy is but a trifle larger than the State of Nevada. 
Our blood is thrilled when we read of the wars of 
ancient Greece; but Greece is smaller than the State 
of West Virginia. 



A SACEIFICE. 27 

Our comrades were victors, so were others too 
soon forgotten. Russia, Prussia and England sent 
their millions on to victorious conquests, but they 
went 'into the service to learn the art of fighting 
— to be soldiers, and share the promotions and hon- 
ors of war. Our boys went to conquer a rebellion 
and save the unity of a nation. 

When Marcus Curtius was told by the soothsayer 
that the chasm opened in the Roman Forum must 
be filled with Romans most valued, he mounted his 
horse and rode away into death, a sacrifice for his 
country. 

But President Lincoln said there must be offered 
75,000 men, and then 100,000, and hundreds of 
thousands of America's best' men, to fill the chasm 
of rebellion; and as oft as he called they answered, 
until 500,000 marched away unto death, a sacrifice 

"For the land of the free 
And the home of the brave." 

Let Scott sing of "Clan Alpine," Macaulay tell of 
Horatius holding the bridge, and Tennyson write of 
the "Light Brigade"; but what Scottish chief, Ro- 
man warrior or English veteran ever sacrified with 
American soldiers. 

Their only desire was the death of the rebellion. 
When General Pemberton met his old comrade, 
General Grant, at Vicksburg, and asked for an in- 
terview, that bloodshed might cease, Grant's an- 
swer voiced the feelings of every true soldier: "On 
one condition this blood may cease to flow." "What 



28 PATRIOTISM. 

is that?" "An unconditional surrender on your 
part, General." This spirit filled the ranks, as well 
as the officers. 

A chaplain of the late war, Mr. Lyford, passing 
through the cars after the famous battle of the Wil- 
derness, saw a wounded man making great ado. He 
had lain on the field three days and nights, unat- 
tended. Said the chaplain, "My son, many a boy 
would have rejoiced if he could have come out of 
that fight as well off as you are. " "Oh, chaplain, 
you misapprehend me. I am not mourning over my 
wounds, but they say my leg must be amputated; 
if so, I cannot return and see the final victory." 

A poor boy, dying, leaning against a tree, when 
one of his comrades took his canteen and wet his 
lips, revived to say, "Mother ! Jesus!" Then, 
with his last strength, he pushed away the comrade, 
saying, "Follow the flag," — choosing rather to die 
alone than have the flag trail in the dust or sutler 
defeat. Heroic boy ! His record is on high. 

John Jordan said, in reply to General Garfield's 
query, "1 made no trade with God for life." "What 
do you mean ? " said the General. "I mean, I will 
carry that message, sir." 1 have seen these men cut 
in pieces, torn in twain, die on the cold ground, and 
taken their last farewell, but never a murmur. 

We remember them not simply because of Peters- 
burg, Gettysburg and Richmond — not because they 
were soldiers,victors, brave and heroic. They were all 
these, and more — they were martyrs. They died 



THE AMEKICAN SOLDIER. 29 

for us, for the national honor that was threatened. 
For this they shall be honored in the far-off future; 
and as the boy stops in his history at Pompeii, to 
honor the soldiers buried in its gateway by Vesu- 
vius' mad freak, so our children's children will stop 
in the gateways of Richmond, Petersburg, Vicks- 
burg and Pittsburg Landing, and honor the stately 
forms of the American soldiers who fell rather than 
leave their posts, and as every schoolboy remembers 
to honor John Mayard for taking Elijah's chariot that 
others might stay, believing it: 

"Better, like Hector, on the field to die, 
Than, like a perfumed Paris, turn aDd fly." 

We come to speak of American soldiers, and to 
cover their graves, as Moses covered the burning 
bush and the speaking mountain, with a history that 
shall inspire the prophets of state until hope is lost 
in the full fruition of brotherly love. 

Again, we recall the lives and deeds of others, 
who suffered as much in staying at home, as those 
who went to battle. 

At the close of a meeting held in the in- 
terest of the War, in Batavia, New York, 
a man with locks white for the grave came to the 
altar, and, taking the speaker by the hand, said: 
u My first son was slain at Vicksburg, my second 
was killed at Chickamauga, my third and last has just 
gone down at Petersburg; and now if the govern- 
ment wants what little property I have, it can have 
it: and then, if it will take the old man, it can 



30 PATKIOTISM. 

have him; better that all should go than that the 
best government God ever gave to man should 
perish." 

Such was the spirit that filled many a breast and 
home, which deserves mention for helping with the 
sacrifice made. 

Again, we forget not our enemies in this service, 
for our fight was not for power to destroy men, but 
for union. True patriotism rejoices not over the 
death of its foe, but in the success of its principles. 
Many a night was spent in making the enemy's 
wounded and captured comfortable. All night we 
have watched by the wounded enemy, waiting for 
the coming surgeon. A scene in the life of our la- 
mented President, whose life and death has employed 
so much of our thought for the last year, is given 
by his biographer. When Rosecrans fought the bat- 
tle of Chickamauga, he decided that Thomas must 
be informed of the situation. Generals Garfield and 
Gano, and their orderlies, set out for a dash into the 
camp, and were met by the enemy. Both orderlies 
were killed; Gano was wounded and his horse 
killed, and Garfield's horse wounded twice. On 
that ride, in such an hour, he sees a hut, out of 
which crawls a number of Southern soldiers, sick 
and dying with hunger. Gen. Garfield stops and 
asks, "What can 1 do for you I " 

"Don't come near, we have the small-pox; but 
give us some money to get bread, lest we die ! " 

True to the spirit of a soldier, he throws them his 



A NEW GENERATION. 31 

wallet with its contents, and dashes away, saying, 
"Farewell; God bless you ! " 

This spirit may have prolonged the war; but 'twere 
better to do right and suffer, than to do wrong and 
find release. 

Better or worse — the facts are historic and unal- 
terable. All questions of what might have been 
clone are settled by the lapse of time. The Chick- 
ahominy, Rappahannock, Shenandoah, James, Poto- 
mac and Mississippi are written all over and along 
their banks with blood, and monuments that tell 
what was done; not what might have been. 

A generation has been born and bred in the South 
since we asked our conquered brothers to come back 
and share with us; a thousand interests have devel- 
oped that claim our attention; and there remains but 
one thing for us to do, and that is well expressed in 
an old hymn: 

To serve the present age, 
My calling to fulfill. 

Temples and institutions of learning crown our 
hills; while the generation born since the war, and 
now in the majority, needs the patriotism such an 
hour begets. If there were no words spoken, or 
songs sung; an hour among the heroic dead, with 
muffled tread and silent prayer, would impress us 
with a sense of their self-sacrmce, and inspire a 
heroism the age needs. None can move among the 
disembodied spirits of such men without profit. To 
go again in imagination in search of water to slake 



32 PATRIOTISM. 

the thirst of a dying comrade; to note the tear of joy 
falling over his unwashed cheek, as we took his last 
farewell, is to put on anew the spirit of other days. 

This is a service more catholic than others of simi- 
lar claims. The nation turns from its busy marts to 
the mountains, whose ragged brows oiler flowers for 
decorating the graves in the valley, regardless of 
distinctions, political or religious. 

We listen alike to one common call of indebted- 
ness, to those who fell in defence of the principles 
that make this a land of liberty. 

And, with the spirit of the sisters of old, we cover 
the nation's graves with flowers too dear for other 
use. We come, at the call of our leaders, removed 
from all criticism by law, coming "with no blast of 
war blown in our ears, to imitate the tiger," but 
with peace in all our borders, prosperity in all our 
land; a smiling heaven above, a flowery mat beneath, 
and hope infinite in gifts filling our hearts. We 
come to praise God for all the past, and for the 
spirit that offered 500,000 men a living sacrifice in 
the hour of peril. 

But let us not forget the price of liberty, nor suf- 
fer our citizens to become indifferent to its claims; 
for if we fail to transmit the patriotism of the fath- 
ers, this nation will drift into the regions of indul- 
gence and doubt; and when the last scarred veteran, 
with empty sleeve and false limb, has gone to his 
grave, you will cease to recall the lessons taught by 
the history of the past. 



ONE DAY. 33 

A day among the graves of our honored dead 7 
with this generation is, therefore, of untold worth to 
us. Silence your orators, muffle your drums; put 
away all regimentals, if you please, but the grave 
cannot be silenced. The veteran feels as he cannot 
feel elsewhere. He hears the bugle-call, and leaves 
his comrade again. He hears the cry of the wounded, 
and takes the farewell message. 

This day, at Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, 
Petersburg and Richmond, thousands recall the con- 
flicts of the Rebellion; and every throb of the heart 
is creative of that patriotism so essential to the pres- 
ervation and well-being of a free government. Thus 
our homes are made better, and home interests be- 
come dearer than life itself. What would the Ethe- 
opian do in his sandy desert but for his devotion, 
arising from the fact that a service teaches him that 
God made his home, and entrusted angels with the 
forming of all the rest of the earth? 

The Norwegians, proud of their barren summits, 
write upon their currency, "Spirit, Loyalty, Valor;" 
and whatever is honorable, let the world learn it 
among the rocks of Norway. 

The sight of these regimentals, flags and graves 
translates us to the day of sacrifice; and as we climb 
the rugged mountain for flowers, and the higher 
mountains of thought, our love burns for this our 
beloved land. 

God grant that the spirit of '76 and '61 may fill 
the hearts of all this generation with that devotion 



34 PATRIOTISM. 

that watched, fought and prayed the victories down 
upon us. Oh, may our prayers take on the spirit 
of Him who died in our stead; that when these or- 
ganizations cease, and the last veteran sleeps, the 
principle of devotion to right may live and lead oth- 
ers, with willing hands, to bring out the flags, torn 
by "lead long lost," in honor of American soldiers. 
Then in the far-off future, some angel will sing, 
"They never fail, who die in a good cause;" their 
country glorifies their names, and memory embalms 
their heroic deeds. 

But there are clouds to-day, that a June sun can- 
not burn away. A brother, whose youthful form 
shared my bed and mother's good-night, is sleeping 
in an unknown grave, visited by strangers and bap- 
tized with a stranger's tears; and this is true of many 
who, to-day, have not the sweet consolation of honor- 
ing their dead and decorating their graves; for they 
know not where they lie. Perchance old ocean's 
restless waves are now murmuring a requiem over 
their unmarked resting places. Thousands sleep on 
rebel soil, and 

"Sorrow and love go side by side; 
Nor height nor depth can e'er divide 

Their heaven- appointed bands. 
Those dear associates are one; — 
Not till the race of life is run 

Disjoin their wedded hands." 

The prayers of this land will, to-day, have a new 
motive, touched upon by the spirits of those who will 



OBLIVION. 35 

rest in unknown graves until the last trumpet of the 
archangel shall arouse the sleeping dead. 

But this service should not end in selfishness. The 
spirit is too catholic and divine. We owe it to oth- 
ers; to the memory of the fallen. 

Oat of sight, out of thought, is cruel and selfish. 
They suffered for .us many days of weariness and 
pain; and shall not we spend one of three hundred 
and sixty-five in respect to their memory ? Can we 
be true to our manhood and withhold such service ? 
It is only doing unto others, as we would that they 
should do unto us; for there is an inherent desire in 
every soul to be remembered. The mounds of Mex- 
ico and the far west, the w T ell-tombs of Peru, the 
memorials of Palestine and the songs of the poets, 
all stand out in proof of this desire. 

What more cruel than to be forgotten by our 
friends and comrades; our names and deeds to find no 
mention ? The mariner flings his farewell kiss, with 
a "Remember me." The soldier wrote in his blood, 
"Remember me." And we all say: 

' Death shall not claim the immortal mind; 
Let earth close o'er its sacred trust, 
Yet goodness dies not in the dust." 

Our divine Lord silenced the murmuring throng 
at His anointing, with words of commendation co- 
extensive with the gospel He preached. 

Rising higher, and entering the secret chamber of 
His own soul, we find him framing a memorial ser- 



36 PATRIOTISM. 

vice, to perpetuate His own memory throughout all 
time: "This do in remembrance of me." 
In this He voiced the chorus of nature: 

" There seems a voice in every gale, 
A tongue in every flower, 
Which tells, O Lord, the wondrous tale 
Of Thy Almighty power. 

The birds that rise on quivering wing 

Proclaim their Maker's praise; 
And all the mingling sounds of spring 

To Thee an anthem raise. 

Shall I be mute, Great God, alone, 

'Midst nature's loud acclaim ? 
Shall not my heart, with answering tone, 

Breathe forth Thy holy name ? 

All nature's debt is small, to mine; 

Nature shall cease to be; 
Thou gavest proof of love divine — 

Immortal life to me," 

In view of this law of desire, history has been, 
and is being, written. For this, the halls and galleries 
are filled with familiar faces and forms. 

And in obedience to this claim we come here, with 
music and flowers, to say to our comrades, "We 
remember thee. Thou shalt never be forgotten." 

The names of George Washington, Abraham Lin- 
coln, the anniversary of Independence and Decoration 
Day, will never disappear from American history 

Though the old blood-stained roll will waste, this 
service will perpetuate itself so long as the princi- 
ples for which our comrades died are cherished. 



THE FUTURE. 37 

This organization will soon be gone. Every form, 
once clothed in blue, will have passed from our sight; 
and no children of soldiers can close the wasted 
ranks; no bread-box nor marble slab will then mark 
the graves of soldiers. Gettysburg and Arlington 
will be alive to other interests; while angels look in 
vain for forms, and cease to whisper, "He was 
loved.'' But the service will live when these cheeks 
are pale in ashes; memorial days will be brighter 
and American soldiers more honored. They will be 
respected more and more, as the future unrolls itself. 
He who said, "Remember Me," will never cease to 
scatter flowers over the sacred dead; and this nation 
will never get so busy as to forget its martyrs. The 
scarlet shroud, and the torn flag will live while his- 
tory publishes its secrets; and when the questions 
are settled, and on the principles "for which they 
fell,'' a temple shall be builded for liberty, justice and 
religion, whose dome shall overshadow the land 
from the Pacific to the Atlantic; and hundreds of 
millions gather here with fruits of industry, art, 
science, learning and religion. Then universal free- 
dom shall honor the founders and saviours of this 
land by remembering their graves. 

We have reached the day of greater conquests on 
broader fields, with more subtle enemies. 

When the war closed, all were so tired of its waj^s 
that they were ready to do almost anything for 
peace, and mistakes were made; everybody seemed 
touched by our angel of peace. 



38 PATRIOTISM. 

The victors pitied their enemies; and, with a mag- 
nanimity that appears nowhere else in history, we 
said, "Brothers, come back and share alike with us. 
and let us be friends, and try again." 

But the friends of a lost cause were in a difl'erent 
attitude; and when they had rallied from their 
shock, they appropriated the offer to make it the 
cause of another battle; and to-day they are gaining 
in the halls and at the ballot-box, what they lost in 
the war. 

The leaders talk of a lost cause, but cherish the 
same spirit. They honor the most prominent rebel 
of the country as a returning conqueror; while he, 
with the flippancy of a modern infidel, tells the 
world that the rebellion of '61 was for a righteous 
cause, and we are called upon to pay equal honors 
to the boys in blue and those in gray. 

Shall this open the eyes of the North ? If not, 
what will ? Gentlemen, we have a work yet in this 
country; and the boys who fought in blue must 
stand together, and by their friends, until peace 
reigns and men love peace in righteousness. 

Would it not have been better for North and 
South to have held the conquered territory under 
discipline for ten or fifteen years, and given them 
to feel some responsibility, before they came back to 
the rights of citizenship ? Yes; but that day has 
gone by. 

We are this side of a civil war, and the partisans 
are scattered and dying. Twenty years more will 



FUTURE PROBLEMS. 39 

dissolve associations, and leave only here and there 
a lonely soldier. 

Then let us grapple the priceless commodities left 
us; and remember that to have lived in the nine 
teenth century in America, will be an awful account 
to meet in the roll-call of eternity. 

With 60,000,000 free spirits to be educated in re- 
publican and New Testament ideas, so that they 
may govern themselves and abide in safety, will re- 
quire statesmanship of the highest character. 

The machinery for subduing the wild prairies and 
forests, employing the tides, controlling the ener- 
gies, marshalling the wealth, distributing the reve- 
nue, is vast and complete; but how to utilize it is 
yet a matter of study. 

To educate the 2,000,000 persons now in our 
midst, unable to read their ballot, and yet holding 
the balance of power — who control thirty-two sena- 
torial seats and 138 electoral votes, that can at any 
presidential election change the life of more than 
200,000 employes, ought to call us to action. The 
turning of the rum and tobacco interests and forces, 
now representing §1,4:71,000,000 of wealth from the 
channel of sorrow, waste and death into the chan- 
nels of enterprise and prosperity, by the opening of 
the gates of the whole world to our manufacturing 
interests, is also very important. 

The mingling of nationalities in political freedom 
is upon us. How shall we make the African, Ital- 
ian, German, Irishman, Frenchman, Indian and Nor- 



40 PATRIOTISM. 

wcgianinto Americans; and so assimilate their pecu- 
liarities into the body politic, as to strengthen our 
republican institutions, is a momentous question. 
Now they are factors for party quarrels, and are 
bought by politicians, in seeking for the promotion 
of selfish interests. 

When I recall that in 1S80 there were 6,679,943 
persons of foreign birth in our land, representing 
twenty-two kingdoms and forms of government; 
almost 2,000,000 from Ireland, bringing that jeal- 
ousy arising from their peculiar relation to Scotland 
and England; and nearly 3,300,000 unable to speak 
our language, and utterly ignorant of Anglo-Saxon 
rules; and when I remember that no other nation 
or kingdom on which the sun shines confers citizen- 
ship so recklessly, and the fact that we are growing 
more lax to duty, I shudder. 

In 1844 a judge was tried and removed from office 
in Louisiana for issuing 400 certificates of naturali- 
zation in one day, claiming to have examined 800 
voters as to their age, character and residence in 
that time. For this, Judge Elliot was removed from 
office. Twenty years later, in New York, one judge 
made in one day 800 voters; and in 1869, 8,468 cer- 
tificates were issued, and ten witnesses testified to 
the age, character and residence of all; one man 
claiming to know, personally, 2,162 worthy of citi- 
zenship; and neither of these parties was impeached. 
u Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind." 

This mighty tide of immigration now used by 



March of liberty. 41 

politicians for party purposes, and often in a way 
that leaves the material like old iron, worthless to 
society until melted down and recast, must be met by 
Christians, who will mould them into princes; for truth 
and righteousness, liberty and truth, must prevail. 
An eminent countryman of ours once said: "Stop 
the march of liberty ? " As well might the boys of 
Boston mount the State House steeple some lustrous 
night, and call on the stars to stop in their courses. 
Gently, but irresistibly, the greater and lesser bear 
move around the pole; Orion, with his mighty trail, 
comes up the sky, and the Bull, the Heavenly Twins, 
the Crab, the Lion, the Maid, the Scales, and all that 
shining company pursue their heavenly march night 
and day. The urchins in their lofty places grow 
tired, sleepy and ashamed, while liberty moves 
steadily onward. 

So live, my comrades, that you may increase the 
honor of those of whom the poet sings: 

On fame's eternal camping-ground 
Who their silent tents have spread, 

While glory crowns with endless years 
The bivouac of the dead. 



U. S. GRANT 



When the stars shall wane out from the sky 
Then the name of a Grant shall die. 

— Barker. 

Above all Greek, above all Roman fame. 

— Pope. 

Unbounded courage and compassion joined, 
Tempering each other in the victor's mind, 
Alternately proclaim him good and great, 
And make the hero and the man complete. 

— Addison. 

Another veteran sinks to rest; 

His earthly pilgrimage is o'er, 
His last dread battle now is fought, 

And he has made a happier shore. 

When recollection leaves her throne, 
When liberty and life are not, 

When ancient chaos holds its reign, 
Then veterans shall be forgot. 

— Barker. 

How shall we rank thee upon glory's page? 
Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage. 

— Moore. 



(xii.) 



CHAPTER III. 



SERMON PREACHED AT MARTHA'S VINEYARD, AUGUST 

2, 1885.* 

"Even so must the Son -of Man be lifted up." 
This is one of the few scenes of Old Testament rec- 
ord used by our Lord, in unfolding His system of 
salvation. Its age gives it strength and character; 
for time clothes events and characters of value with 
power to command the attention of thoughtful men, 
as no other ordeal can. 

We stand in the presence of an old tree, through 
whose branches the winds of a century have swept, 
as in the presence of a historian. It has the secrets 
of a century. Birds and beasts have found a shel- 
ter in and beneath its branches. It speaks of God 
in every fibre; and every leaf is a leaf in God's vol- 
ume. Yes; age adds value. So in the works of 
men, wrought in keeping with right — age adds to 
their value. Those grand old works of the masters, 
whose fingers have long since found rest in the 
earth, are becoming more and more valuable. Each 
year adds to their worth. 

By the same law, this picture becomes valuable to 

*Sermon on the death of Grant, preached at Martha's 
Vineyard, August 2, 1885. 

(42) 



CIRCUMSTANCES AND MAN. 43 

the teachers of to-day: Wrought in the studio of 
Moab, while Israel was on a march through the wil- 
derness, it passed through the prophetic fires — suf- 
fered the criticism of the poetic and philosophic 
ages, until the coming of the Son of Man, who em- 
ployed it without revision or comment, to confound 
a Jewish rabbi. 

So the event of the past week, closing forever 
the earthly career of our peerless conqueror, becomes 
more and more a matter of interest and study for the 
student of military achievement and national strength; 
for "None but himself can be his parallel." 

Twenty-nine years ago our great, heroic chieftain 
was unknown, even to the Governor of his own 
State, who said to Mr. Washburn, "Illinois has 
money enough, and men enough, but no one man of 
skill and military genius sufficient to organize and 
drill her soldiers." 

4 'Call Capt. Grant, of Galena." 

"Capt. Grant? " said Gov. Yates; "Who is Capt. 
Grant?" 

Thus our dead hero waited to be lifted up, and 
brought to notice before the world, that men might 
see him, and know of his power. 

None can, by searching, find out man, until circum- 
stances of sufficient importance lead him to disclose 
the secrets of his own power. 

Grant was not a creator of circumstances; had not 
opportunities sought him, the world would have 
been ignorant of the gifts God stored in him. 



44 PATRIOTISM. 

Like the gold stored in the hills, he lacked the 
ability to disclose himself. 

No one could have suspected the designs of Provi- 
dence, in selecting him to be sent to West Point. 

But when the opportunity presented itself, he be- 
came mightier than Hercules, who crushed the two 
serpents sent to destroy him in his cradle; for he 
conquered himself and the reputation his dark days 
brought to him, and was ordained with the ointment 
of war. 

Entering the storm, almost unknown, he eagerly 
sought for such fields as Donnelson, Shiloh, Vicks- 
burg, Chickamauga, The Wilderness, Spottsylvania, 
Petersburg and Appomattox; and ever after was 
known as the hero of Appomattox. 

Thus in four years a man, comparatively unknown, 
has come to be one of the best known men in the 
world, by being lifted up. 

In keeping with this, we find that certain princi- 
ples, after sleeping for ages, undisturbed, in the 
pathway of nations, have suddenly developed into 
factors in the world's progress. 

History is replete with illustrations of this fact. 
Take the mission of electricity, which was a matter of 
discourse as early as 600 years B. C. ; and yet it 
slept undeveloped and undisturbed in the pathway 
of man for centuries, waiting for some brain with 
force enough to lift it. The world waited for the 
voice that now speaks; but waited in silence, employ- 
ing birds, horses and steam to carry news. Not un- 



ELECTRICITY. 45 , 

til the sixteenth century did men know of its power; 
and only in the nineteenth did man lift it up, and 
turn the attention of the race towards its wonders. 
No; it must wait until Morse could persuade an 
American Congress to try the experiment. He, 
with convictions all-controlling, conquered the in- 
difference of that whole body, and led them to 
action. Yet in all the centuries electricity was the 
same — the free gift of God to man — waiting to speak 
and burn, when once intelligently employed. This 
principle holds good in all conditions of life known to 
man; it holds true concerning the Man Jesus, 
promised in the seed of woman. He waited in the 
pathway of the race, with blessings all divine, while 
suffering millions went mourning down to death, 
ignorant of the Christ; and yet every man, woman 
and child, when born of God, and initiated into His 
service, expects to reveal Him at once so tint every 
hearer shall accept Him. 

He must be lifted into power. This is a matter of 
vast importance; for most men make gods like unto 
themselves; and, knowing their own weakness, they 
stumble at the power of God. Now I suppose Gen- 
eral Grant was as willing to crush out the rebellion 
when Governor Yates first commissioned him as 
when before Vicksburg, or Richmond, or when he 
marched down upon Lee in 1S65; but he had not the 
power given him at the hands of the authorities, and 
the confidence of the people. His power was not 
simply in his commission. Had he been commis- 



46 PATRIOTISM. 

sioned commander-in-chief in the first place, the peo- 
ple would have looked on him as inexperienced; and 
watched his undertaking with grave doubts. But, 
having filled each successive position in a way that 
gained and held the confidence of the people, when 
he took the position and called for troops, they were 
forthcoming without question; and had the rebellion 
lasted, men would have continued to have confidence 
m his ability. 

He cannot be hidden; his name is heard every- 
where. He left the war fitted for the Presidency; 
and the presidential office, after tw T o terms, to receive 
honor at the hands of kings and princes of the earth; 
but nothing in all his career gave him a stronger 
hold upon the civilized world, than his last conflict 
with death; for in that he had only one purpose — 
holding the grim monster at bay until he should 
complete his memoirs, and thus place his family be- 
yond the reach of want. 

In this he illustrates the life of our divine Lord, 
who had all the willingness needed in saving this 
world; He had all the power, in that He was God, 
and was Son of the King of power, and Prince of 
peace; but it became Him in bringing many sons to 
glory to be made perfect through suffering — a Sav- 
iour, though slain in the purpose of God before the 
foundation of the world. He must ascend the stair- 
case of miracles from Cana to Bethany, in order that 
He might be made perfect in His Saviourhood. He 
must stand amid the Jews at the grave, and exhort 



ABIDING POWER. 47 

and speak of life; climb the mountain, that the world 
might hear from heaven God's approval and com- 
mission. Peter, James and John heard the voice in 
the clouds, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." He must 
walk upon the sea, travel the dark cypress and enter 
the grave, in order to turn its key and take death, 
hell and the grave with Him in His flight to glory. 

It was this that gave his words abiding power — 
that will cause them to be remembered in the wast- 
ing firmament, when Plato's definitions shall be for- 
gotten. This will lift Him above all those philoso. 
phers who spoke, to court criticism. He said must 
and shall, with no corrections in the second edition. 
Of this Nazarene it is written: "He spake as one 
having authority. " 

This question of power may not appear to you in 
its full significance; you may never have felt your 
utter inability to fill a given position. 

I shall never forget an attempt to carry from the 
battle-field a comrade whose limbs were shattered; 
throwing his arms about my neck and baptizing me 
with his blood, I started; but after having carried 
him a short distance, found it impossible for both to 
escape. The missiles of death flew thick about us; 
when he kissed my unwashed cheek, whispered his 
farewells for mother, and then said, "Sergeant, 
you cannot carry me; we shall both be taken; 
lay me down, and you escape; 3^011 are wil- 
ling — you would if you could; but you have 



4:8 PATRIOTISM. 

not the strength. r Oh, how I longed for the 
necessary power to do as I desired for my dying 
comrade. Then, for the first time in my life, did I 
realize my weakness. No one can ever tell what 
the constant effort and unceasing anxiety of the late 
General Grant was during the year 1863-4; watched 
by scheming politicians and jealous subordinates, 
and filled with a sense of responsibility such as his 
conception of national unity and sense of right 
must have given him. It was not to conquer the 
enemy and enslave them, but to bring about a con- 
dition of peace, such as would establish confidence 
north and south, east and w T est, and thereby main- 
tain the glory of the nation. 

The strength of a nation is in its power to main- 
tain the confidence of its people under all circum- 
stances. 

Let me give you an illustration, which is neither 
new nor original: 

In the Persian form of government there were 
peculiarities, such as made it impossible for a king 
to revoke a decree. It must remain unaltered 
through all time. 

This is the perfection of law; and could it have 
been enacted in perfect wisdom, would have secured 
safety and security to the Persians under the reign 
of a perfect king. But neither perfect wisdom or 
perfect manhood was found in the law-makers, nor 
the executive powers. The king, moved by a com- 
pany of jealous men, made a decree that none should 



PEKFECT LAW. 49 

offer prayer to any save himself, not knowing on 
whom it was to fall; and Daniel, his friend, whom 
the king loved, was made the subject of restraint. 
Daniel called upon his God, and thereby became the 
subject of punishment. Though the king loved him, 
and labored until the going down of the sun, he 
could not save him, and keep the law unto the main- 
tenance of confidence in the kingdom. Nothing 
short of that power which controls the laws govern- 
ing the fires, and holds the beasts in subjection, 
could save Daniel. The king must throw him into 
the den of lions, and thereby keep the law. But God 
could, and did, save him, carrying him safely through 
the den of lions without injury to the lions, for he 
belonged to another kingdom, and the lions were 
reserved for the next victim. So God's laws arc 
irrevocable; made in view of the eternal security of 
the just and obedient. A violation of any one of 
these laws, passed unnoticed, would compromise 
the whole system of God's government. Among 
the many laws of God is found this: u The soul that 
sinneth, it shall die." That law must be kept; the 
honor must be preserved, or confidence in all the 
code is compromised. Sinners must be thrown un- 
der the law of death; the purity and sanctity of 
heaven is in question. 

General Grant w T as unselfish in his devotion and 
loyalty to America, his native land. He inherited a 
Puritanic faith; and, as the Eev. Dr. FaAVcett, of 
Aurora, 111., has well said, u He was a Christian, as 



50 PATKIOTISM. 

well as a patriot. To a company of young men 
■who called upon him at his home in Galena, just 
before their starting for Europe, he said: 

'Gentlemen, never forget that you are citizens of 
these United States, and be as careful of the good 
name of your country as you would be of your 
home. ' 

Truly, from this hour, with these words and 
memories, we will love our country more. 

General Grant was a Christian. He possessed 
that broad, philanthropic spirit, and that unselfish 
generosity of soul, that is born of a Christian faith; 
and that ungrudgingly contributes its need of 
merit to high and low, rich and poor, conspicuous 
and obscure. After the fall of Fort Donelson, when 
the soldiers, in an exuberance of delight, were glory- 
ing over the accomplished victory, General Grant 
sat quietly and unmoved in the midst of their shouts, 
and after a little he quietly raised his head and said: 
'Comrades, we must not forget that it is God who, 
gives us victory.' Standing high above envy 
or jealousy, having no personal purposes to serve, 
but only a desire to do his duty before God and his 
country, he contributes with the most liberal gener- 
osity to the merit of the generals, great and small, 
who assisted in the restoration of the U nion. On 
that memorable Fourth of July, after the fall of 
Vicksburg, when dispatches of congratulation were 
reaching him from all great men and all cities of the 
North, and when his subordinates were casting their 



A CHRISTIAN. 51 

praises at his feet, he looked coolly around upon his 
adulators and said: 'Let us not forget the brave 
soldiers who have done the watching and the light- 
ing. The glory belongs to them.' Thus, ever and 
always unmindful of himself, with Christian spirit 
he gave praise to others. It was this spirit that 
prompted him on the day when General Lee stood 
before him and offered him his sword — a token of 
surrender. General Grant said: 'General Lee, 
keep that sword; you have won it by your gal- 
lantry.' And when at the hour the Union soldiers 
were wont to show signs of rejoicing over the glori- 
ous victory and the return of peace, the great- 
hearted, the warm-hearted, Christian-hearted Grant 
requested that they abstain from all expressions of 
joy, saying: 'These are our countrymen and our 
brothers again.' No pomp, no show, no parade, 
but a broad Christian manhood, doing unto others 
as he would they should do unto him. 

General Grant possessed a clear intellectual con- 
ception of the benefits of Christianity to his own 
country, and freely stated them. At the time of the 
marriage of his daughter, in a conversation with 
Bishop Simpson and others, he said, pointing to the 
Bible that lay before him : 'It is the Bible that makes 
sacred and pure the homes of our people.' In a 
conversation with him after his return from 'around 
the world,' I asked him of the mission fields of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church in China. He gave me 
a full description of three of our missions in that 



52 PATRIOTISM. 

country, and then added: 'In China I learned to 
appreciate what Christianity has done for my own 
country.' General Grant had such a faith in Jesus 
as the Saviour and Comforter of men, that he went 
to Him in prayer in the hour of his sorrow. In a 
conversation with Bishop Gilbert Haven he said, in 
speaking of his early departure from home: 'My 
mother taught me when a child to go to God with 
my sins every night, and I have never forgotten it.' 
Edward D. Mansfield, in his life of the General, says: 
'His earliest training was by a Christian mother, 
and the influence of that training is seen every day.' 
When in his tour around the world, he reached Jeru- 
salem, his friends proposed to give him a grand fete. 
'No,' said the hero, 'no ovation to me in the place 
where my Saviour was crucified.' 

General Grant had a Christian faith that led him 
to hope and pray for a resting-place in heaven. The 
other day a devoted priest of the Roman Catholic 
Church visited him and told him that all the Christian 
people were praying for him. The general answered: 
'I feel grateful to the Christian people of the land 
for their prayers on my behalf. This applies to all. 
I am a great sufferer all the time, but the facts I 
have related are compensation for much of it. All 
that I can do is to pray that the prayers of all these 
good people may be answered so far as to have us 
all meet in another and better world.' General 
Grant had a Christian faith that enabled him to pa- 
tiently endure suffering and calmly face the realities 



A CHRISTIAN. 53 

of eternity. He has not conversed much through 
these months of suffering, for, like Moses, he was 
a man slow of speech. Doubtless his faithful and 
honest pastor, Dr. Newman, will have treasured 
away many a rich and comforting word that has not 
yet reached the public ear. But through all the 
days the eye of a nation has been turned to Mount 
MeGregor, and there they have seen an example of 
uncomplaining heroism higher and better than any 
the history of the war contains. Vicksburg was a 
great victory; Lookout Mountain was a great vic- 
tory; Appomattox was a great victory, but through 
these weeks of quiet suffering the nation has seen 
how much greater than the achievements of fields of 
battle are the household virtues and simple family 
affections which all men have within their reach. 
They have seen how the Christian lessons at a moth- 
er's knee could arm for greater war and greater vic- 
tory than West Point or years on the tented field. 
'Go up the mountain and die, and be gathered to 
thy people,' said God to Moses, and now more than 
a month has passed away since a like message fell 
upon the ear of the leader of the armies of Columbia, 
and he slowly, before our eyes, passed up Mount 
McGregor to die and be gathered to his people. 
Let us for a moment ascend the mountain, and stand 
by the bed of the departing hero. It is Wednes- 
day evening, July 22, 1885. The sun has gone 
down to his rest over the western mountains, and 
the evening is cool and bright, and all is hushed 



54: PATRIOTISM. 

and quiet about the mountain home, except the 
twitter of the birds in the lonely pines. The fam- 
ily are gathered at the sick man's side, and the 
sorrowing w T ife requests Dr. Newman to offer 
prayer. While the prayer is being offered strong 
men bow their heads, and tears flow down the 
cheeks of all. 'Now lay me down to die,' said the 
quiet man, and his request was heard. All night 
long doth love its faithful virgils keep. It is Thurs- 
day morning, July 23, 1885, at 7.04 o'clock. But 
hush, what is this we hear ? Ah ! The leader and 
commander has been gathered to his own people, 
and that which has broken the stillness of the morn- 
ing is the voice of weeping over all the land. From 
the heart of New England, from whose loins his 
fathers came, we hear the voice of weeping; from 
his own native State we hear the voice of weeping; 
from Illinois, his adopted State, we hear the voice of 
weeping; from the far-away South comes the voice 
of mourning; from over the mountains comes the 
voice of mourning. That throb which you hear is 
from over the sea, for England stands with bowed 
head. From the fisherman's hut at the seaside, from 
the frontiersman's cabin in the far west, we hear the 
voice of weeping. Under the arches of the great 
cathedral, and through the open windows of the 
humble western church, one requiem of music floats 
upon the morning air — 'The minor strains of sor- 
row, for a soldier is dead.' Grant, the general; 
Grant, the faithful citizen; Grant, the trusting 



CALLED OF GOD. 55 

Christian, has been gathered unto his people, while 
the soldiers of Columbia, in weeping columns, march 
to the beat of muffled drum. The heart of a great 
nation would give the ashes of their leader a resting 
place in some new Westminster at Washington, 
where pilgrims might visit his tomb for ever. 'And 
die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be 
gathered unto thy people.' Standing on the sum- 
mit of Mount McGregor I look up, and, following 
the path of light until it reaches the gate of the 
heavenly city, I look within, and there, amid the 
exulting f reedmen of all countries and all climes, I 
see Columbia's three worthies — Washington, Lin- 
coln and Grant." 

So our unconquerable hero has gone forward, un- 
til at last he has been called to mingle in the Court 
of the Most High, and when the roll has been called 
for the last time, when the last reveille has been 
sounded, when the last battle has been fought, the 
honored name of Ulysses S. Grant will be found on 
the unchanging pages of history as one whom God 
raised up for a special work; and history will show 
how nobly was that work done, how fearlessly were 
our armies led to victory by the greatest military 
leader of modern times. A leader who battled not 
for the advancement of his own interests — not that 
be might be at the head of an empire, but prompted 
by his love of right, he fought that the millions in 
bondage should be slaves no more, and for the 
triumph of right and the preservation of the Union. 



JOHN A. LOGAN 



He lives on just the same as before; 
This is only the blouse that he wore. 

— Barker. 

Life that dares send 

A challenge to his end, 

And when it comes, say, "Welcome, friend! 

— Crashaw. 

When all the blandishments of life are gone, 
The coward sneaks to death the brave live on. 



Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed; 
Who does the best his circumstance allows, 
Does well, acts nobly; angels could do no more. 

— Young. 

He most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. 

— Bailey. 

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere; 
In action faithful, and in honor dear; 
Who broke no promise, served no private end, 
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend. 

— Pope 



(xlil.) 



CHAPTER IV. 



ADDRESS — JOHN A. LOGAN." 

"And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they 
buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the 
sons of David; and all Judea and the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem did him honor at his death." 

A celebrated Russian once said: "Cursed is the 
nation that has no great men to govern its affairs." 
Another, commenting on this saying, said: U A repub- 
lic needs good men more than she needs great men. 

To-day our republic turns from the grave of one 
of her great and good men. Our Hezekiah is dead, 
and his body is laid in the sepulchre, while the 
nation honors him. 

General John A. Logan was a great man. He 
was a unique, self-made American. Wherever he 
appears — in home, lodge, post, caucus, convention, 
camp, battle-field, legislative hall or church, he was 
John A. Logan, with no attempt to be other than 
himself; and, as it is written of Hezekiah of old, so 
will it be chronicled of Logan: "Whatsoever he be- 
gan to do, he did it with his might, and prospered." 

His death leaves a vacancy, never to be filled. 
The nation will go on, and all her interests will be 

*Address — * John A. Logan," — delivered Sunday morning, 
December 27, 1886. 

(56) 



GENEROUS. 57 

cared for, for God is at the helm, and this people, 
many of whom loved him more than they can love 
any man now living, love the land he loved and the 
cause he fought for more than all, and will arise from 
this sorrow to do as he did. 

It seems fitting that meetings should be held in 
all parts of this great land, and that honor should be 
given him at his death. He belonged to the nation; 
and it is truly fitting that we who live in Chicago, 
where his name is a household word, where his pres- 
ence was always occasion for happy greetings, where 
his name appears on the records of God's militant 
church, and where it is hoped his dust will he in- 
terred, should speak of his achievements, note his 
virtues, and mourn his loss. 

As a man, he was generous even to a fault. I 
think it would have been a virtue had he been more 
chary of his gifts, his services and sacrifices. We 
speak of his honorable poverty as though it were to 
be courted and cited for young men to emulate. I 
cannot look upon it in this light. I glory as much 
as any man in this nation in the integrity which kept 
his hands clean and his character pure; but do we 
want to brand every man who by prudence, fore- 
thought and industry has secured a fortune, with 
dishonesty and impurity ? 

Nay, nay; nor would our honored dead approve of 
this way of putting things. It was his great heart that 
gave, when prudence would have dictated otherwise. 

In ten thousand homes to-day they will take down 



58 PATRIOTISM. 

a familiar picture and look through their tears at the 
man who shared with them because of their fellow 
feelings as soldiers. How many widows and or- 
phans in this land to-day are the recipients of help 
from the government because John A. Logan was 
their friend ? They paid the petty lawyer; but who 
thought of paying him, or when did he think of 
taking aught from their pittance ? This character- 
istic of his nature opened the way for innumerable 
demands upon his time and energy, that must have 
hastened his flight and cut short his work. I heard 
a letter read from his pen within a week, dated De- 
cember 6. Everybody claims the attention of great 
men; and they forget how many are making de- 
mands on one man; and sometimes we feel slighted 
because they do not give us more time, money and at- 
tention. Friends, remember, in a republic where all 
positions are secured by the patronage of the people, 
no public man can give any one person his undivided 
attention, and we are working our great men to 
death — robbing them of their home comforts, their 
means, their strength and their friends, and the na- 
tion of their lives. 

He was full of sympathy. His great nature w T as 
touched and moved at the sight of suffering. This 
gave him a place in the hearts of the million soldiers 
and their families, now living, that no other man has, 
or can secure. If you have watched the telegrams 
made public since his death, you will approve of this 
statement. 



CONVICTION. 59 

He was a man of conviction. He did what he be- 
lieved to be right, for the sake of right. He was a 
Democrat at the commencement of the war. He 
favored and supported Douglas, and did his best to 
elect him ; but when Lincoln was declared elected, 
and the disloyalty of the South began to show itself, 
his voice was heard in Congress in defense of the 
Union and the support of Lincoln; and at the 
defeat of our troops at Bull Run, Logan's heart was 
stirred to its very depths. His convictions were at 
white heat, as his speeches show, and the thousands 
enlisted by him during the succeeding sixty days 
clearly indicate. 

His convictions of right were so strong that no 
temptation was sufficient to sway him from the path 
of integrity. In 1880 he believed that Grant ought 
to be nominated for the third term; and many think 
he might have secured the nomination for himself 
at that time, but for his fidelity to his old com- 
mander and his unwillingness to give up the fight. 
This gave him the confidence of thoughtful men, and 
their tribute of praise is heard to-day. 

General Grant said: "At the first outbreak of the 
war some of the people of Illinois joined the south- 
ern army; many others were preparing to do so; 
others rode over the country at night, denouncing 
the Union, and made it as necessary to guard railroad 
bridges over which national troops had to pass in 
southern Illinois as it was in Kentucky, or any of the 
border slave states. Logan's popularity in this dis- 



60 PATRIOTISM. 

trict was unbounded. He knew almost enough of 
the people in it by their Christian names to form an 
ordinary congressional district. As he went in poli- 
tics, so his district was sure to go. The Republican 
papers had been demanding to know where he stood 
on the questions which at that time engrossed the 
whole of public thought. Some were very bitter in 
denunciation of his silence. Logan was not a man 
to be coerced into an utterance by threats. He did, 
however, come out in a speech before the adjourn- 
ment of the special session of Congress, which was 
convened by the President, soon after his inaugura- 
tion, and announced his undying loyalty and devo- 
tion to the Union. But I had not happened to see 
that speech, so that when I first met Logan my im- 
pressions were those formed from reading denuncia- 
tions of him. McClernand, on the other hand, had 
early taken strong grounds for the maintenance of 
the Union, and had been praised accordingly by the 
Republican papers. The gentlemen who presented 
these two members of Congress asked me if I would 
have any objection to their addressing my regiment. 
1 hesitated a little before answering. It was but a 
few days before the time set for mustering into 
United States service such of the men as were wil- 
ling to volunteer for three years of war. I had some 
doubt as to the effect a speech from Logan might 
have; but, as he was with McClernand, whose senti- 
ments on the all-absorbing questions of the day were 
well known, I gave my consent. McClernand spoke 



61 



first, and Logan followed in a speech which he has 
hardly equalled since for force and eloquence. He 
breathed a loyalty and devotion to the Union which 
inspired my men to such a point that they would 
have volunteered to remain in the army as long as 
an enemy of the country continued to bear arms 
against it. They entered the United States service 
almost to a man." 

As a soldier, he won his greatest victories. No 
man was more valiant than he, none more cour- 
ageous. 

There seems to have been some who looked upon 
him with doubt when he appeared among Unionists; 
but his bravery, valor and fidelity during the long 
struggle, from '61 to '65, silenced all enemies and 
fixed him in the heart of the republic as ' 'The Vol- 
unteer of the West," 

He was born to be great. As a leader, he had 
physical courage that never failed him, and coupled 
with this was a moral courage that made him often 
unconquerable, and a will which made him the chief 
character among the volunteers of this country for 
all time; and when all else that he did or said is for- 
gotten, his war record will be cited with pride by 
children's children. 

In this he not only had the courage to face danger 
undaunted, but he made himself a leader of men by 
laying his plans so carefully and thoughtfully as to 
inspire confidence. 

The army saw at a glance that their leader took in 



62 PATRIOTISM. 

the situation, that he worked by well-matured plans, 
in which he himself had such perfect confidence that 
they accepted the situation and followed wherever 
he led." 

In the famous charge at Atlanta, when McPher- 
son fell and the army halted, broke and were 
ready to run, Logan received orders from 
Sherman to assume command of the army 
of the Tennessee; a staff officer says, "He bowed 
his head and said, 'Would to God I were better 
qualified to fill the place he filled so perfectly.' " 
This inspired confidence, and putting spurs to his 
famous black stallion, "Old John," he rode rapidly 
to the line of the Seventeenth corps, where he ar- 
rived in time to save the day. When he arrived, 
the lines of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth w r ere 
crumbling away. Dashing down the line of battle 
till he reached the right, Logan reined in his foaming 
horse with such force as to throw the animal back 
on his haunches. Then, riding up to a color-bearer 
and seizing the flag, he rode to the front and center 
of the line and cried: "Will you hold this line with 
rue? " "Yes, yes ! " and "Logan leads ! " went up 
from ten thousand voices. "Then keep in line and 
advance. We'll whip and drive them to the sea." 
Each man felt that Logan in the lead was worth an 
army corps to fill the gap in the lines; the faltering 
nerved themselves for one more struggle; laggards 
and stragglers came from behind rocks and • trees 
and fell into line, and, with the cry, "Logan leads ! " 



FORTY ROUNDS. 63 

they hurled the rebels back, drove them into At- 
lanta, and, by a splendid exhibition of personal 
bravery and power over demoralized troops, only 
approached by that of Sheridan at Cedar Creek, 
defeat was turned into victory, and Atlanta was 
practically secured, with eight thousand rebel dead 
to attest the fierceness of the light. 

When this was over, Sherman felt obliged to ap- 
point Howard as commander of the Army of the 
Tennessee, which I alwa}^s regretted. Hooker re- 
signed, but Logan returned to the Fifteenth corps, 
to share with his men, and on July 28th he led the 
famous Fifteenth in charge, and continued victorious 
in every fight until September 2, when Atlanta fell. 

An incident is related, showing how he secured 
the corps badge. One day an Irishman was asked 
what their badge was. Smiting his cartridge-box, 
he said: "There is my badge, with forty rounds in 
it, sir." General Logan heard it, and at once 
adopted it as the badge for the Fifteenth corps; so 
from that time a cartridge-box, marked "Forty 
Rounds," was their corps badge. 

This was characteristic of the man. He w 7 as in 
the war to conquer. When pressure was brought 
to bear on him, in 1862, to leave the army and ac- 
cept the nomination for Congress, he refused, and 
said, "1 have entered the field to die, if need be, for 
the government; and I never expect to return to 
peaceful pursuits until the object of this war has 
been accomplished. 



6i PATRIOTISM. 

A friend of his says when Logan wanted to charge 
upon the enemy's ranks in the Georgia campaign, 
McPherson ordered him to retreat, and build up 
fortifications and protect his men. Logan urged, 
protested, and did all that a subordinate could do to 
be allowed the privilege of fighting, and history 
proves that he was right. But he obeyed his su- 
perior officer, and the night following, his friend 
said: U I undertook to sleep with him in an ambu- 
lance, but sleep I could not, nor rest, such was the 
restlessness of that great soul, that, like a war-horse, 
he struggled all night to be free." 

As a politician, he has led well, and been true to 
his friends and manly with his enemies. Everybody 
knew where to find him, and just what to expect 
when he was found. 

He was simply a straightforward fighter for the 
right, as he saw it. I have not always agreed with 
him, but always admired his defence of positions 
taken, for when he had given his heaviest blows, 
he stood up to receive the returning blow, with a 
manliness commendable. 

He was never malignant nor vindictive. He was 
a partisan; and as such, defended his party with all 
his power, which is commendable. The first thing 
for any man to do when he finds he can no longer 
defend the church or party of which he is a mem- 
ber, is to sever his connection, and find a home else- 
where. This he will do if he be an honest man, and 
such was our brother. 



STATESMAN. 65 

The Confederate soldiers say: "He was a warm 
friend, a brave enemy, and an honest man, and we 
lay upon his coffin the memorial, not indeed of those 
w 7 ho loved him during his life, but of those who, in 
his death, recall only his virtues." Those stirring 
virtues were numerous and positive. Of an ardent 
nature, he did nothing by halves. Ambitious he 
was, undoubtedly, but his aspirations lay in the 
direction of patriotic advancement and elevation, and 
sought no devious routes or unmanly advantage. 
During an age of corruption his hands were clean, 
and his career shows how he stood the ordeal of a 
national political campaign without dishonor, com- 
ing out of the contest with an untarnished reputa- 
tion, and more respected than when he entered it. 

His civil service compares well with that of the 
best men we have been blest with. He was not a 
Lincoln, Sumner or Grant, but he was a student of 
sturdy habits. His speeches in the Senate and on 
the stump show him to have been a broad, earnest 
student of men and interests. He knew the Ameri- 
can people, and few men created greater enthusiasm 
in the campaign of 1884 than our lamented comrade. 
Wherever he Avent few were ever given a better 
hearing or had more influence in leading men to act 
in harmony with their thought. 

His great effort in the Fitz John Porter case was 
his masterpiece, showing a force of argument, illus- 
tration and eloquence that surpasses that of any year ' 
in his whole career, which is a lesson to all men in 



66 PATRIOTISM. 

public life who are relaxing their hold, losing their 
influence, an^l retiring, because they have reached 
the dead-line of fifty. Here was a self-made man, 
in his sixty-first year, reaching his climax with a 
reserve force that promised better works the next 
time, had he lived; and occasion called. 

When General Logan's death was announced to 
him, James G. Blaine thus briefly summarized his 
character: "General Logan was a man of immense 
force in a legislative body. His will was unbending; 
his courage, both moral and physical, was of the 
highest order. I never knew a more fearless man. 
He did not quail before public opinion when he had 
once made up his mind, any more than he did before 
the guns of the enemy, when he headed a charge of 
his enthusiastic troops. 

In debate he was aggressive, and I have had occa- 
sion to say before, and I now repeat, that while 
there have been more illustrious military leaders in 
the United States, and more illustrious leaders in 
legislative halls, there has been no man, I think, in 
this country, who has combined the two careers in so 
eminent a degree as General Logan." 

He was a Christian. When we have said all that 
could be said for him as a man, husband, father, 
friend, soldier, politician and statesman, we must 
admit that he was more than all these, for these 
were but the results. He was a Christian. Said 
Dr. Edwards, who knew him well: "He claimed 
not to be a model in personal consecration, or in the 



CHRISTIAN. 67 

profounder experiences of the spiritual life, but we 
believe him to be a modest, honest, unpretentious 
Christian citizen. Political competitions are cruelly 
unsparing, and General Logan's very church rela- 
tions have been subjects of criticism among men who 
would have made a political trade with Judas, if the 
latter had but promised his casting vote. From our 
own professional and personal standpoint in our 
church, we have seen that which compelled faith in the 
Christian sincerity and unquestionable genuineness 
of John A. Logan. In the ardor of public move- 
ment and the earnestness of pressing issues, we have 
sometimes differed from him, but never in anything 
that for an instant impeached his character, or gov- 
erning motive." 

His pastor and friend, Dr. F. Bristol, says: "No 
man ever more devotedly cherished the principles and 
admired the character of Christ than General Logan; 
but no Christian was ever more sincerely modest in 
assuming that name. He could not be a hypocrite 
in religion any more than in politics. He never 
spoke lightly on sacred themes, nor made a jest of 
other men's honest convictions, whether they agreed 
with his own or not. He was liberal and high- 
minded enough to grant to every other man the same 
right of independent opinion which he claimed and 
exercised for himself. He made no profession of 
saintliness; but he made proof of his manliness. 
From the mortal, human side, home was his religion, 
duty his creed; his country was his altar, his sacri" 



68 PATRIOTISM. 

lice his own blood, and his record was glory and a 
nation's gratitude." 

For more than fifteen years General Logan was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a 
greater portion of that time was connected with 
Trinity Church, of Chicago, where he was ever 
heartily welcomed by a people who loved and ad- 
mired him and his. His several pastors often had 
the privilege of administering to him the holy sacra- 
ment, and of preaching in his hearing the word of 
God, to which he was always an attentive and sin- 
cere listener. And often has it been proved to those 
pastors that the death-folded hand was as tender in 
benevolence as it was terrific in battle. While to 
his praise it may be said that he never sacrificed 
Christian principle to political ambition, it may like- 
wise be said to his honor that he never sacrificed a 
just and laudable ambition to fear, to envious criti- 
cism or to unreasonable opinions." 

Bishop Newman, his pastor, said at his funeral: 
"Bluff, steady, honest Logan was a Christian in 
faith and practice. Here is his Bible, which he read 
with daily care. Sincere and humble, he accepted 
Christ as his personal Saviour. When I gave him 
the sacrament of the Lord's supper, too humble in 
spirit to kneel on the cushion around the altar, he 
knelt on the carpet, and, with his precious wife by 
his side, received the tokens of a Saviour's love. His 
manly brow shone like polished marble, for he felt that 
he was in the presence of the Searcher of all hearts. 



IMMORTALITY. 69 

It was his last sacrament on earth. Standing by 
the tomb of Grant on last Memorial Day, he deliv 
ered an oration on 'Immortality.' In that glorious 
hope he died. He has joined his comrades in the 
skies. He has answered to the morning call of eter 
nallife." 



His people's heart is his funeral urn; 

And should sculptured stone be denied him, 
There will his name be found, when in turn 

We lay our heads beside him. 

— Smith. 

His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might 
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right, 

— Cowley. 

"Whoe'er amidst the sods 
Of reason, valor, liberty and virtue, 
Displays distinguished merit, is a noble 
Of Nature's own creating. 

— Thomson. 

He was not of an age, but for all time. 

— Tourneur. 
Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies, 
Dead he is not, but departed, for the hero never dies. 

— Longfellow. 



(xiv.) 



PHIL. SHERIDAN 



CHAPTER V 



SHERIDAN. ^ 

u The last words of great men embody the ruling 
passions of their lives. The miser, as death closes 
about him, clutches for his coins, th« dying stage- 
driver reaches for his brake; the leader of men issues 
commands. Great-hearted Nelson, when mortally 
wounded, cried: 'What's the position of the enemy?' 
and being told, triumphantly exclaimed: 'Let me 
die while they are retreating. ' The words of Paul 
to Timothy were:] 'Thou, therefore, endure hardness 
as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.' Lying in impe- 
rial Rome, mentally comparing the victories of 
Caesar and Pompey with those of Joshua and Caleb, 
Samuel and David, while ringing in his ears came 
the blows of the hammer used in constructing the 
block on which he was to be beheaded, he wrote 
these words of cheer to Timothy. Our minds have 
recently been drawn toward a brave soldier, the 
grand, heroic and gallant Phil. Sheridan, who, by 
identifying himself with the armies of the North, 
shared in the victories of the boys in blue." 

His life is full of suggestions. He entered into 



*Oration delivered August 12, 1888. 
(70) 



BRAVERY. 71 

every service with a purpose to win, such as gave to 
his orders an inspiration that often became uncon- 
querable. 

Too say that he was brave, seems insipid. He 
was more. Others as fearless have failed, and are 
forgotten; he added' to his bravery that of heroic 
energy, and mental conception, such as made the 
most insurmountable obstacles trifling. He acted 
from a conviction, and not on impulse. This made 
him blind to difficulties, indifferent to surroundings, 
and alive to results. 

He dashed into action with a lover's conviction of 
what must be done; and we follow him on to victory 
where others have failed. Some one has said: "He 
possessed a splendid tactical ability; he counted his 
chances; he was fertile in resource; he was quick to 
see the weakest point in an enemy's defence, and to 
turn it to his own advantage; he had a singular ge- 
nius for the quick handling of his men, and for get- 
ting the best out of them; and a no less remarkable 
ability to extricate himself from a dangerous situa- 
tion. His fertility of resource, indeed, and his ready 
adaptability to the unforseen emergency, often 
served him in good stead, and turned defeat iuto 
victory." 

In olden times he would have become blood-thirsty 
and tyrannical; but not so in the conflict for national 
unity. "Alexander the Great waded through the 
blood of his fellow man. By the sword he con- 
quered; and by the sword he kept the vanquished in 



72 PATRIOTISM. 

bondage. Scarcely was he cold in death, when his 
vassals shook off the yoke, and his empire was 
clashed into fragments." But Sheridan fought to 
weld a nation more closely, and to put aside the ques- 
tion from which resulted the war; hence the humanity 
exhibited made our hero a man of conviction; and 
Sheridan represents the elements of true heroism. 
With courage undaunted, combined with gentleness 
of disposition; strong as a lion in war, gentle as a 
child in peace; bold, daring, fearless, undaunted, un- 
hesitating, his courage rose with the danger; ever 
fertile in resources, ever prompt in execution; his 
rapid movements were never impelled by a blind im- 
pulse, but was prompted by a calculating mind. I 
have neither the time nor the ability to dwell upon his 
military career from the time he left West Point till 
the close of the war. 

Let me select one incident where he reveals to us 
his quickness of conception and readiness of execu- 
tion. I refer to his famous ride in the valley of 
Virginia. As he is advancing along the road, he 
sees his routed army rushing pell-mell toward him. 
Quick as thought, by the glance of his eye, by the 
power of his sword, by the strength of- his will, he 
hurls back that living stream on the enemy, and 
snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. 

Said his friend and pastor: 'On some few occa- 
sions, in Washington, I had the pleasure of meeting 
General Sheridan socially, in private circles. I was 
forcibly struck by his gentle disposition, his amiable 



AFFECTIONATE. 73 

manner, his unassuming deportment, his eye beam- 
ing with good-nature, and his voice scarcely raised 
above a whisper. I said to myself: Is this bashful 
man and retiring citizen the great general of the 
American army? Is this the hero of so many 
battles ? 

It is true that General Sheridan has been charged 
with being sometimes unnecessarily severe toward 
the enemy. My conversation strongly impressed me 
with the groundlessness of a charge which could in 
no wise be reconciled with the abhorrence which he 
expressed for the atrocities of war, with his natural 
aversion to bloodshed, and with the hope he uttered 
that he would never again be obliged to draw his 
sword against an enemy. I am persuaded that the 
sentiments of humanity ever found a congenial home, 
a secure lodgement in the breast of General Sheridan. 
Those who are best acquainted with his military 
career unite in saying that he never needlessly sacri- 
ficed human life, and that he loved and cared for his 
soldiers as a father loves and cares for his children. 

But we must not forget that if the departed hero 
was a soldier, he was, too, a citizen, and we must 
ask ourselves how he stands as a son, husband and 
father, The parent is the source of the family, the 
family the source of the nation. Social life is the 
reflex of the faruity life. The stream does not rise 
above its source. Those who were admitted into the 
inner circle of General Sheridan's home need not be 
told that it was a peaceful and happy one. He was 



74 PATRIOTISM. 

a fond husband and an affectionate father, lovingly 
devoted to his wife and children. I hope I am not 
trespassing on the sacred privacy of domestic life 
when I state that the General's sickness was acceler- 
ated, if not aggravated, by a fatiguing journey which 
he made in order to be home in time to assist at a 
domestic celebration, in which one of his children 
was the central figure.'' 

Thus he will go down into history with Lincoln and 
Grant, and always be put in contrast with McClellan 
and other inefficient leaders. 

The author of the "Life of Lincoln," given in the 
"Century," said of Sheridan: "Any one reading 
over his letters of this first period of his military 
service, is struck by the fact that through him some- 
thing was always accomplished. There was absence 
of excuse, complaint or delay; always the report of 
a task performed. If his means or supplies were 
imperfect, he found or improvised the best available 
substitute; if he could not execute the full require- 
ment, he performed as much of it as was possible." 

No one characteristic is in greater demand to-day 
than this genius to do something. Every army has 
its martinets, who are forever getting ready — going 
to do — drilling for work, but never get to doing any- 
thing until the opportunity is lost. 

There are others who are so cautious and fearful, 
that opposing armies become to them unconquerable, 
and the enemy crosses over the river and is gone, 
before the recruits arrive. When Moses commanded 



TRUE SOLDIER. 75 

Israel to go forward, the line was in motion before 
the waters moved one iota. Oh, that the spirit of 
doing something might come on us to-day. 

Sheridan was always at work; every day made a 
record he could look on with pride. A celebrated 
artist once was found weeping at eventide, and 
asked why he lamented. "Ah," said he, "1 have 
not finished one thing worthy of a place in a gallery 
to-day." Sheridan was always a soldier. Every- 
body knew he was a soldier, whether on duty, or in 
camp. 

"He's a soldier; I know he's been a soldier, by his 
walk." 

These words attracted my attention, as I sat in 
the depot, awaiting the arrival of a train. They 
were used in reference to an erect, firm-treading 
man, who had alighted from a train, and had evi- 
dently been an object of interest to his fellow 
passengers. 

"Aye, and he's a soldier; I know by the way he 
carries his pack," said another. 

"Yes, and by his politeness," observed a third. 
"Did you see how he touched his cap, only because 
you gentlemen looked at him ? Most of us would 
have said, 'What are you staring at ? ' " 

The train started off; the man left the station, and 
I followed. "Did you hear the remarks of your 
fellow travelers, my friend ? " 

He smiled, as I repeated them, and said: "Just 
as it should be, sir; just as it should be. A soldier 



76 PATRIOTISM. 

in plain clothes, off duty, should be the same as 
when uniformed, and in command." 

A true soldier ought to walk so as to be known as 
such everywhere. 

He was never indifferent to the orders of his su- 
periors. Whatever may have been his conception 
of the situation, orders were to be obeyed, not ques- 
tioned. I once stood near him when the orders 
seemed most ridiculous; yet he sat on his horse, 
calmly over-looking the field, when a sharpshooter 
picked off his aide; as he fell, the General said: 
"Take him off;" and then, turning his eye back, 
held us for minutes by force of example. He simply 
said: "The commander knows why these orders are 
given, and the responsibility is with him, after they 
are executed." 

I dare say Joshua's men wondered why they 
should be ordered to equip themselves as warriors, 
and march around Jericho once a day, for six days; 
and wondered more why they should be required to 
march seven times around the city on the seventh 
day; but they obeyed. God knew; and that was 
sufficient. They blew their rams' horns, and, with 
a mighty shout, the walls cracked and tumbled. 
They did it heartily. God requires heartiness in his 
service. How grandly Paul entered that service. 
His prospective wealth, and his deep-seated preju- 
dice for the religion of his fathers were abandoned, 
and he carried his great learning, wide influence, 
family name, and personal authority into that ser- 



CHARITY. 77 

vice, and was ever after enthusiastic, loyal, and in- 
tensely hearty. 

The age is in need of men who are willing to do 
what is in their power. If your sight is dim, do 
something that does not require fine sight. Our 
grandmothers abandoned fine needlework, and knit. 
If your blood is thin, and you chill by exposure, 
arouse yourself; run a little, and get up a glow. If 
you can't lift two hundred pounds, lift ten. If you 
are too old to go out to battle, be sure you enter into 
your closet, and pray for those who do go out to 
fight. If you are not able to give gold, give silver 
— give copper. If you cannot weep with the weep- 
ing, rejoice with the joyful. If you can't soar like 
an eagle, skim as the swallow. 

If you can't be a Joshua, be an "armor-bearer. " 
Never plead inability, or poverty, when God and 
His church put in their claims for service. I know 
a lady who never attends prayer meetings, or even- 
ing service — she is "not able;" but she accepts every 
invitation to tea, and to evening parties, that she 
receives. She never pleads absence from these 
places through indisposition. She lacks heart in the 
Lord's service. I know a family who buy every 
article of luxury and clothing they need. They go 
to any and all amusements they desire to. No com- 
plaints of poverty are made; but if God's cause needs 
money to push its enterprises, they plead poverty, 
and refuse to give. They lack heart. 

Sheridan's life was an incentive to general loyalty, 



78 PATRIOTISM. 

such as will "find ready acknowledgment, not only 
in the North, but also in the South. I know the 
Southern people; I know their chivalry, I know their 
magnanimity, their warm and affectionate nature; 
and I am sure that the sons of the South, and especi- 
ally those who fought in the late war, will join in 
the national lamentation, and will lay a garland of 
mourning on the bier of the great general. They 
recognize the fact that the Nation's General is dead, 
and that his death is the Nation's loss. And this 
universal sympathy, coming from all sections of the 
country, irrespective of party lines, is easily ac- 
counted for, when we consider that under an over- 
ruling Providence, the war in which General Sheri- 
dan took such a conspicuous part has resulted in in- 
creased blessings to every State in our common 
country. 

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them how we will." 

And this is true of nations, as well as individuals. 
Our people are coming to see this, and encourage 
everything that is creative of true loyalty. In a 
word, there is in men a spirit that glories in true 
loyalty. I remember a scene after the battle of 
Sycamore Church, where our batallion was surren- 
dered, and a number made a dash and escaped.* A 
young soldier, just from the hospital, weak and 
wounded, there came to me, saying: "Where's my 
brother, Steve ? " I told him I had seen him 
stripped of coat and shoes and marched off toward 



. A DISCHARGE. 79 

Libby, as a prisoner. He said: "I'll take his 
place;" and he did, and fought bravely on. On 
another occasion, while McClellan was keeping us 
in the mud, on the Potomac, a drummer boy was 
shot. The bone in his leg was shattered. A -battle 
was on. He said: "Carry me on your shoulder, 
and let me drum it out." Of such stuff are heroes 
made. Sheridan was loyal to what he believed 
right. Oh, for more such heroes. Do right. I'd 
rather go to heaven through the poor-house, than to 
hell through a mansion. Soldiers must be aggressive. 
Let Christians get this spirit, and we can take Chi- 
cago for Christ. We can crowd the churches and 
the chariots until God will have to enlarge his 
heaven, to accommodate the hosts who will come up. 
I have a small parchment at my home. It could be 
folded up in the thimble my mother wore on her 
finger. All the money in Chicago would not buy it 
— that honorable discharge from the army. I look 
ahead to another discharge. Not one of parchment, 
but a white stone, surrounded by the sanctified, who 
trail their white robes on the golden paving of the 
New Jerusalem. Comrades, don't be satisfied with 
your discharge, and your G. A. R. badge, honorable 
as they are; but live such a life, that when the stars 
fall, and the rivers cease to sing, you will hear the 
welcome call: "Come up higher." 

There are battles to be fought in the on-coming 
days, and the promise is to him that overcometh. 

There is a day of settlement. When? After 



80 PATRIOTISM. 

death. "It is appointed unto man once to die, and 
afterward the judgment." True loyalty never 
dies. 

Dr. Duff, better known as the friend of India, 
while pleading his cause in 1867, in Edinburgh, 
fainted and fell. His brethren took him up, and 
carried him into an adjacent room; and when he 
revived, he said: "Take me back. I was pleading 
for India. They shall know tnat I would die for 
their interests. Let me finish my plea. " 

So the soldier sings: 

"Ne'er think the victory won, 
"Nor lay thine armor down; 
The work of faith will not be done, 
Till thou obtain a crown. 

•'Fight on, my soul, till death 
Shall bring thee to thy God; 
He'll take thee, at thy parting breath, 
Up to his blest abode." 

The flag, to a true patriot, is most sacred, and its 
defence is the patriot's delight. 

How could Barbara Fritchie have immortalized 
her name as she did by her daring defence of the 
flag, in Fredericktown, while Stonewall Jackson's 
army was passing through the place? Said she: 
"Fire at this old, gray head, but spare the flag." 
To her, it was more precious than life. So with the 
Prussian officer, who, when found by his enemy, 
who would gladly have removed him to more com- 
fortable quarters, begged to be permitted to die as 



SELF-ABNEGATION 81 

he was; for he had secured the regimental flag, and, 
folding it under his dying form, was holding it from 
the enemy. 

Such should be the feeling of every Christian, in 
reference to the name of Jesus, and the cross. 

Every oath is like a dagger, sent to the hilt into 
the Christian's heart. We are set for the defence 
of the truth, as much as ever James was. 

I do not wonder at Mr. Savage's attack upon the 
Scriptures a short time ago; it is in keeping with 
his avowed profession. He is set forth for the de- 
fence of certain interests. 

We are Christian soldiers of the Lord Jesus; for 
others let us be as earnest. 

When Jesus' body was in the tomb, the Jews be- 
came alarmed, and went to Pilate, asking for in- 
creased guards. Pilate said unto them: "The sol- 
diers are at your service. Go, make the tomb as 
secure as you can." They doubled the guard. 
Arn't you glad in your soul to-day that they did 
their worst % 

So we say to every foe tnai threatens our home: 
"Do your worst, my dear sir. We have no fear; 
and the sooner you exhaust all the schemes of hell, 
and all the devices of men, the better for the race. 
Our God is leading on through tears, furnaces and 
tombs, to certain victory. Our weapons are not 
carnal. 

Our heroic leader was so devoted to the welfare of 
his country as to neglect his own pecuniary interests. 



82 PATRIOTISM. 

He did not suffer anything to hinder his useful- 
ness. He put out his flag, with a purpose to defend 
it at any cost. 

So, if we believe in the name of Jesus, we have 
no compromise with sinners concerning it. When 
asked, as were the students at New Haven, a few 
weeks ago: ''Do you believe in the divinity of 
Christ ?" we are ready to say, "Yes;" and not, "I am 
not quite persuaded to say that I do. 1 ' I should as 
soon think of Sheridan saying: "I am not quite per- 
suaded whether the flag is better than the Southern 
rag or not," as to have a converted man say he is 
not quite persuaded as to the deity of his Saviour. 
To me it is an incomprehensible mystery. I can 
understand how some of the boys at Cedar Creek 
did not turn around when Sheridan met them on the 
19th of October, 1864; because he was human, and 
very likely to fail in the conflict. But I cannot un- 
derstand how a spirit claiming to have met Jesus in 
the work of regeneration, can doubt his divine 
claim. When Gilbert Becket was a prisoner of war, 
he defended his principles so manfully that the 
Prince admired him, and released him; and the 
Prince's daughter, having learned two words in 
English, started in pursuit of the man who defended 
his principles. First she cried, ''London, " by which 
she secured a passage to that city; then she left that 
to cry, "Gilbert;" and from street to street she 
cried, "Gilbert," until she found him, whom she 
never left until death. Let the church believe fully 



FABLES. 83 

in a hell to shun, and a heaven to gain, and in 
Jesus Christ as our only Saviour, and this world 
can be taken. Such men are sure to use the right 
weapons, and they won't be a life-time finding out 
the truth. 

Fables sometimes contain great truths. There is 
a fable associated with the visit of Empress Helena 
to the Holy Land, in search of the cross. Three 
crosses were presented; and she called for a corpse, 
and laid first one, then another, upon the dead form; 
as the real cross touched the dead man, he moved, 
and life returned. All we ask is, will this make 
dead men live ? If so, it must be divine. 

In the cathedral at Brussels is a wonderful pulpit, 
called the "Chair of Truth." It is very skillfully 
wrought, so as to represent a pulpit in the midst of 
the tree of life, in which the preacher is represented 
as speaking in God's stead. 

Beneath the pulpit are a man and woman hanging 
their heads in shame, and hastening from the garden 
of pleasure. Around the tree is wound the serpent, 
with head lifted above the pulpit, and mouth open 
to deny every word uttered; but above the serpent 
is the Christ-Child, with foot on the serpent's head, 
ready to bruise it, while His mother stands with 
Him. 

How impressive the picture ! Every pulpit is 
founded in view of the fact that sin is, and abounds; 
and the only power that can crush it out is the march 
of Jesus, the Christ. 



84 PATKIOTISM. 

Every Christian soldier needs just this, in order 
that he or she may endure hardness, as a good 
soldier. 

The biscuit will be hard-tack, often; dainties only 
salt junk, and down pillows, the rugged rocks. We 
must fight, bleed, die, if need be. We should have 
some conscience about spending $20 for luxuries, 
and then staying away from church, because it costs 
$6 a year to attend it. Some spend $2 a year for 
the New York Ledger, and ten cents for Sabbath 
school 

Sacrifice — endure hardness, as soldiers. Sacrifice 
for the cause. That don't mean, how little can I 
get along with, and not appear mean, how much 
can I sacrifice, and not wrong my family and credi- 
tors ? That is not what it means. It don't mean, 
"My head aches; stay at home; rest a little — worked 
a little hard this week; need rest to-day; the air of a 
crowded room is bad; I won't go — couldn't enjoy it 
if I went." 

That is from a worldly standpoint. I must 
pay my pew rent, if my hat is poor; for that is 
God's money. 1 must pay my missionary money; 
for God said: "Go into all the world." And shall 
they go, if I don't help? I must be at church, must 
fight that battle for' Jesus to-day. 

Too many of us want to go to heaven on wery 
beds of ease, and let others fight to win the prize, 
and sail through bloody seas. 

How we do sing that hymn, and then sit and 



GOD HONORS. 85 

tremble a whole evening, because the cross is heavy, 
and we don't feel eloquent and great. 

When Mr. Mood} r canvassed London, an old lady, 
eighty-five years old, came and asked for a district, 
and entered upon her mission with a light heart. 
That's what we want — men and women not too 
young, not too old, nor too great, to speak and work 
for Jesus. 

The reward of faithfulness is an hundred-fold. 
Think of Garfield, and his march from the canal- 
boat to the White House; and Grant, from the stone- 
yard to the foremost rank of generals; and every 
boy in blue has been treated with a parchment you 
cannot purchase with your gold. 

The army of our God offers promotion and honors 
as far above any earthly rewards, as a boundless 
eternity overshadows a short-lived existence. 

I have seen men in the army of the Lord rise in 
ten minutes, from the companionship of devils and 
drunkards, into communion with the Deity, and 
brotherhood with His Christ, and be given a testi- 
monial of immeasurable worth. Comrades in camp, 
arise, put on thy strength, and go forth into real con- 
quests for God. 

And suffer not your cause to fall into unsanctified 
hands. 

During a severe gale, some years ago, at Portland, 
the cross was blown, from the Catholic cathedral; 
and hundreds — yes, thousands — rushed to guard it, 
that no unsanctified hands mi^ht touch it. Com 



86 



PATRIOTISM. 



rades, brethren, let not unchristian hands disgrace 
the land you have helped make sacred. 

"Thy saints, in all this glorious war, 
Shall conquer, though they die; 
They see the triumph from afar — 
By faith they bring it nigh. 

"When that illustrious day shall rise, 
And all thine armies shine, 
In robes of victory through the skies, 
The glory shall be thine/' 




THE SOLDIER'S ATTITUDE 



Peace hath her victories, 

No less renowned than war. 

— Milton. 

But whether on the scaffold high, 

Or in the battle's van, 
The fitest place where man can die, 

Is where he die3 for man. 

— Barry. 

Their armor rings on a fairer field 
Than the Greek or the Trojan ever trod; 

For Freedom's sword is the blade they wield, 
And the light above is the smile of God. 

— Proctor.. 

Along its front no sabers shine, 

No blood-red pennnons wave: 
Its banner bears the single line, 
"Our duty is to save." 

-Holmes. 



(xv) 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE SOLDIER'S ATTITUDE. 

Joshua stands in Bible history as a representative 
warrior. It is true, Moses was a warrior too, but 
not distinctively so. Likewise Abraham, Ehud, 
David and Gideon. Still, they do not represent the 
professional warrior type. They were absorbed 
with other affairs, and their appearances in battle 
were phenomenal and unusual. Not that they did 
not render valuable and efficient service as soldiers. 
The accounts of the overthrow of the five kings, the 
forays of Ehud the left-handed, the routing of the 
robber Midianites by Gideon, and the discomfiture 
and almost annihilation of Israel's enemies by the 
shepherd-poet-king, are read and re-read, with ever- 
increasing interest, even after the lapse of centuries 
and millenniums. 

But Joshua was pre-eminently a soldier. How- 
ever useful he was in civic and ecclesiastic affairs, 
however dear he was to Moses and younger Israel, 
however lofty his virtues, still his chief honor and 
glory belongs to the military. We might, indeed, 
say he was the ideal soldier. He was true to his 
people, to his country, and to his God. Or rather, 
he was true to God, and was hence necessarilv true 
(87) 



88 PATRIOTISM. 

to his people and to his country. For a man's atti- 
tude to his God very largely decides his attitude in 
every other direction. Joshua was devoted to God, 
and hence was devoted to his country. 

On one occasion Joshua was suddenly confronted 
by the Lord Omnipotent. Instantly the doughty 
soldier, with true soldierly instinct and decorum, 
exclaimed: "Whatsaith my Lord unto His servant?" 
Napoleon and Alexander and Caesar never gave ut- 
terance to a nobler sentence. The warrior is ex- 
pected to speak bluntly and to the point, and hence 
Joshua reaches the very apex of the highest possi- 
bility. Meeting the Officer of the Day, the ranking 
Officer of all the da}^, suddenly and unexpectedly, 
his wits do not forsake him. The soldierly instinct 
is uppermost, and, with proper salutation, he re- 
ports for orders: "What saith my Lord unto His 
servant ? " 

This is the true position toward God of every true 
soldierly soul. Joshua, though wise, was not infallible, 
and, though mighty, was not omnipotent. He rec- 
ognizes his need of wisdom and strength, and seeks 
them at the proper place, and the only inexhaustible 
one. Blessed is that army — soldiers and officers — 
where the confidence is mutual, and the relations 
congenial, as between Joshua and God. 

There seemed to be, however, in the mind of 
Joshua, a half-formed doubt as to whether the Being 
before him was really the God of heaven. But one 
thought was dominant: u Is this Abraham's and 



CHKIST APPEARS. 89 

Jacob's and Moses' Connnander \ Is this the One 
who plunged Egypt into mourning on the night of 
the Exodus ? Is this our Pillar and our Cloud ? 
Does he come in Israel's interest % If so, I am ready 
for orders. Command^me, I will gladly obey." 

Why did Joshua doubt? Perhaps he was like 
Thomas — unable to believe without a preponderance 
of testimony ; by instinct and constitution incredu- 
lous. Joshua had never seen God in regimentals; 
he had never seen him accoutred for war; had never 
come in contact with Him in. the role of a warrior. 
He knew of God as Creator, Preserver and Provider; 
but as a Captain-General, God was then truly the 
Unknown God. 

Indeed, he had never seen God at all. Theop- 
hanies had been measurably common to Abraham 
and Moses, and to others, possibly; but this w r as 
God's first appearance to Joshua. Moses was not 
satisfied without an actual sight of God, and heaven 
heard him crying: "I beseech Thee, show me Thy 
glory." The same passion seized the soul of the 
disciple, Philip, and he exclaims: "Shew us the 
Father." Give us a glimpse of the ineffable 
Countenance. Tender was the reply of Jesus: u He 
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also." 
Have you not surmised that I am God ? Have I 
not measured up to } r our conceptions of the God- 
head ? Have I not been divinely paternal 3 "How 
sayest thou then, 'Shew us the Father V I and the 
Father are one." 



90 PATRIOTISM. 

Ah, God is not angry with the soldier who de- 
sires to see his heavenly Commander's face. All 
heaven is in sympathy with such aspirations. 
Heaven may not grant the petition now; but the 
petition itself is sweet with {;he incense that heaven 
loves most. To the cry of every soldier's heart for 
a vision of the Grand Commander's face, innumer- 
able voices answer: "Be patient a little while. Be 
tender and true. Be Christ-like and pure. Be obe- 
dient and unquestioning. The beatific vision awaits 
you. 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
see God. ' " Nor will we ever be satisfied until we 
see God, face to face, soul to soul. Nor can we ever 
have the fullness, humanly speaking, of divine 
knowledge, till we have seen God with our own 
eyes. 

Hence it was fitting in this soiemn crisis in the life 
of Joshua for the heavenly Commander to appear in 
regimentals — in the accoutrements of war, and give 
orders for the farther conduct of the campaign. And 
never was a subordinate more anxious for orders 
from headquarters. He could no longer turn to 
Moses, fresh from the senate chamber of heavenly 
inquiry, for wisdom. There was no human arm 
upon which he could lean. His hope and help were 
of heaven. 

THE OCCASION OF JOSHUA'S ANXIETY. 

Joshua had a tremendous enterprise on his hands. 
Jericho, a walled city, with impregnable situation — 



EMANCIPATED. 91 

the Gibraltar of all the surrounding cities and coun- 
try — lay in his pathway. Like Vicksburg, the Gib- 
raltar of the Mississippi, it was a gateway. It was 
Joshua's only door of entrance. This valiant, 
mighty, haughty city must be taken. Nor would 
she supinely surrender. Joshua knew that one false 
step, one injudicious movement here, would jeopar- 
dise the destiny of millions, if they did not even 
frustrate the very plans and purposes of Deity. 
Nor was retreat possible. Fight he must. The 
Jordan, overflowing and tumultuous, was behind 
him, Jericho was before him, and the very ground 
upon which he stood would be hotly contested. He 
was, indeed, a theocratic king, but he could reign 
only by grace of arms. 

Moreover, his soldiers were in a pitiable condi- 
tion. They were untrained and undisciplined. 
They were not inured to the toils and rigors of 
a military life. The heroes of Egypt and the Red 
Sea were buried in the wilderness. The younger 
generation was composed of raw recruits. They 
were like the farmer-soldiers of Naseby and Marston 
Moor, of Concord and Lexington. It is not bravery 
so much that prevents the panic on the field, but 
discipline. Joshua's untrained and undisciplined 
host might well have weakened his heart, and filled 
him with fears of defeat and disaster. 

Nor was. a lack of discipline all — they were with- 
out supplies. The manna no longer fell; covies of 
quail no more waylaid them. Miraculous supplies 



92 PATRIOTISM. 

mark emergencies, only. God's opportunity perches 
on the apex of man's extremity, and nowhere else. 
God deals with us on business principles. 

Here were some 3,000,000 refugees, without food 
or raiment, in a strange land, embroiled in a fierce 
war, in which one side or the other must suffer ex- 
termination. When Lincoln manumitted 4,000,000 
slaves, their future maintenance became a grave 
problem. Yet there was a vast empire open before 
them, inviting their loftiest endeavors. Still, many 
of the freedmen no doubt suffered — possibly some of 
them suffer even yet. 

Appalling must Joshua have felt his responsibili- 
ties to be. By God's appointment, he was in su- 
preme command — to God was responsible for man- 
agement or mismanagement, for victory or defeat. 
Men, under such circumstances, move slowly. 
When there is no one to share the responsibility, 
there is little danger of rash and reckless move- 
ments. During the last quadrennium the dominant 
party in American politics often dared fate to do its 
worst. Why ? Because they felt they could shoul- 
der their shame on the Senate. In other words, re- 
sponsibility was divided. Better have both Houses 
of the same political complexion. Then responsi- 
bility can be located, and there can be no scape-goat 
to bear away the iniquity of the evil-doers. 

Responsibility weighed heavily upon this hero-sol- 
dier, and so he cried. "What saith my Lord unto 
his servant ? " I am ready to obey orders, if Thou 



BIBLE. 93 

wilt but condescend to command me. Speak, Lord, 
for Thy servant heareth. God heard the petition, 
and granted the prayer. Jericho fell, and God 
was glorified in the deliverance of His people. 

IMPORTANT LESSONS. 

Here many important lessons and influences crowd 
in upon us. One is: It is ours to know the will of 
God. More, it is ours to know even God Himself. 
This knowledge is of supreme importance. If a 
knowledge of men is important, as all the world de- 
clares, how vital, then, must be divine knowledge — 
the knowledge of God, and of His mind and purpose. 
Many false Christs have gone out into the world; 
like Joshua, we may be able to recognize the true, 
and not be deceived by the false. 

In 1864, Grant ordered my regiment to Sycamore 
Church and Cox's Mills, near Black Water Station, 
in front of Petersburg, to guard large supplies there. 
General Hill, learning of our rich stores there, in- 
cluding 2,500 cattle, charged upon us with his whole 
division. After a sharp fight, we were ordered to 
fall back to Sycamore Church, under the protection, 
as we supposed, of Major Baker, but he and his 
forces had been captured. As I moved on, with my 
command, an officer, dressed in our uniform, and 
entirely familiar with our position and movement, 
ordered me to advance. I did so, but in a moment 
was covered with a revolver, and ordered to sur- 
render. 



94 PATRIOTISM. 

We were fairly duped. This deception cost us all 
our supplies and hundreds of precious lives, though 
I escaped, with five men. 

But we cannot afford to make mistakes, least of 
all in the great campaign for eternal life. Nor are 
serious mistakes necessary — mistakes of a vital sort, 
— if we know the mind and will and purpose of God. 
Hence this book, the Bible of the warrior's sainted 
mother, is our authority on tactics. Follow T these 
instructions and you are safe. 

But there are those who claim to have but little 
need for this book; they receive instructions in all 
things direct from heaven, and hence the Bible is of 
but little use to them. Here is great and imminent 
peril. 

I have known men to monopolize the whole time 
in a testimony meeting, excusing their vaulting 
pride and selfishness on the ground that they w y ere 
directed by the Holy Ghost to do so; and leaders to 
call them to order, under the inspiration, as they 
said, of the same holy Ghost. Certainly one of the 
parties w T as deceived, for the Holy Ghost never an- 
tagonizes himself, nor gives contradictory orders 
to His servants. I instinctively keep my hand on 
m\' pocket-book, paralyzed as it is, w 7 hen in cc mpany 
with men who are so excessively familiar with God, 
and who claim direct instructions regarding all the 
trivial affairs of every-day life. 

You have probably read of Freeman, a Massa- 
chusetts murderer. Heaven commanded him, so he 



TIMELINESS. 95 

said, as Abraham of old was commanded, to slay his 
child. And the beautiful, budding life, folded its 
leaves beneath the chilling kisses of night. 

Bismarck is reported to have said that Germany 
triumphed in the late Franco-Prussian war, because 
the Germans carried Bibles in their knapsacks. 
Would that the world were Germanized in this re- 
spect. One of the crying needs of the hour is men 
and women, like the Bereans, fairly devouring the 
Word of God, and learning daily the will of God. 
If a man stands squarely on the plain teaching of 
the sacred volume, he will know the great Com- 
mander, and his joy and peace and liberty will be 
unspeakable. Away with all feelings, impressions 
and leadings that are not sanctified by the plain ut- 
terances of the eternal Word! The Bible is abso- 
lutely true to him who is absolutely true to the 
Bible. Such a man can truly say: "I know that 
I am right; I know that God knows that I am right; 
I know that God knows that I know I am right." 
And, with Job, he may exclaim: "He knoweth the 
way I take, and when he has tried me, He will 
bring me forth as gold." 

It is always the un-Biblical spirit of cant and 
compromise that unnerves the believer, and weak- 
ens the church of God. There was nothing weak 
or vaccillating about that great martyr, Lincoln. 
Said he, in the dark days of our awful war: 
"I want to be sure that we are on the Lord's 
side; for the Lord is always on the right side. 



96 PATRIOTISM. 

And to be on the right side is assurance of eventual 
victory. " 

"For right is right, since God is God; 
And right the day must win; 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 
To falter would be sin." 

Our Commander always appears at the right 
time. You are familiar with Holland's great strug- 
gle for liberty, when Spain came up against her. 
Spain, at that time, claimed to be the arbiter of na- 
tions and the mistress of the world, and the fate of 
Holland was apparently sealed. But just at the 
critical moment God's arm w T as made bare, and the 
shackles of political slavery were broken, and the 
humiliated would-be enslavers were compelled to re- 
turn home with lowered flags and arms reversed. 

It was when Alexander found earth too small for 
his activities, and tearfully bewailed that there were 
no more worlds for him to conquer, and Grecian wit 
and wisdom and art, and Roman power and state- 
craft were exhausted, and men were sated with life and 
weary of living, that the great Commander revealed 
man to man, as the realm of realms, for conquest. 
It was when Alexander had unified the language of 
the world by conquest, and Caesar had unified the 
nations of the earth by state-craft, and Grecian wis- 
dom, voiced by Plato, the loftiest uninspired mortal 
that ever lived, declared that if men are to be safely 
and securely led, there must come a revelation from 
the Godhead — in short, when the world had reached 



PRIDE. 97 

Jericho, ready for anything, but not knowing what 
to do — the great Commander came with seraphic es- 
cort, and celestial music, and men and angels hast- 
ened with congratulations, and even kings came 
down from oriental thrones, and in His humble cav- 
ernous court, did Him honor and homage. 

Here our horizons are rimmed with beaming hope 
— hope for the individual, for the few, for the many, 
for ail. Our whole life here is a continual Jericho 
siege with the adversary of our souls. Our enemy 
fired upon the Sumpter of liberty and hope and sal- 
vation, not on the 12th of April, but on the 1st of 
January— upon the first of the first January; yes, 
before that, when as yet the earth was without form, 
and void, Satan, "stirred up with envy and revenge," 
sought the overthrow of God. His pride 

"Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host 
Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring 
To set himself in glory above his peers, 
He trusted to have equaled the Most High, 
If He opposed; and, with ambitious aim 
Against the throne and monarchy of God, 
Raised impious war in heaven, and. battle proud, 
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power 
Hurled headlong, flaming from the ethereal sky, 
With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
To bottomless perdition; there to dwell 
In adamantine chains and penal fire, 
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. 
Nine times the space that measures day and night 
To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew, 
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, 
Confounded, though immortal." 



98 PATRIOTISM. 

Mighty as is our adversary, our Commander is 
mightier still. Many are the victors: Wellington 
at Waterloo; Marlborough at Blenheim; Napoleon 
at Ulin; Cromwell at Marston Moor; Grant at Ap- 
pomattox; Sheridan at Winchester, and Logan at 
Atlanta; but our great Commander is the greatest of 
all. He is the Victor of Victors. He is Hero of 
Heroes. He is King of Kings. 

Often war must precede peace. Many poetize 
concerning peace, and are forever speaking of Jesus 
as the Prince of Peace. They appear to think that 
He will sacrifice everything for peace. Ah, that is 
one of the devil's fallacies. Never did I have any 
peace until the battle was fought, and, with self van- 
quished, and the great Commander triumphant, I 
ground arms at Emanuel's feet. Then, like Joshua 
at Jericho, I exclaimed: "What saith my Lord unto 
His servant;" and, with another: "Speak, Lord, for 
Thy servant heareth." The way of the cross, is the 
way of the crown. We lay our treasures up when 
we lay them down. We triumph when we are con- 
quered. The smiles of peace overspread the war- 
scarred visage of war. The way to live is to die. 

7 his scene is prophetic of victory. Our great 
commander still aids the Joshuas who report for or- 
ders, and obey them unquestioningly and unmur 
muringly. He is the patron of liberty, virtue and 
righteousness now, as He was in that ancient time. 
This gives us bases for predicting the moral and 
spiritual regeneration of all the Dark Continents, 



PROTECTION. 99 

both east and west, north and south. Our Com- 
mander is marching on, and will continue his victo- 
rious progress until He has put all His enemies and 
all His people's enemies under His feet. Then "the 
wilderness and the solitary places shall be glad 

and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as 
the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice, 
even with joy and singing." 

Herein is assurance. To the trembling Joshua 
comes the assurance: "See, I have given into thine 
hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty 
men of valor." 

"7 have ^given." It is still our Father's good 
pleasure to give us the kingdom. 

"Rejoice, then, rejoice, all ye people! 
The wondrous transaction is done! 
The life-gate is open; come, enter, 
Through Jesus, the crucified One." 

Nor is our tenure of the kingdom brief; no power 
can wrest it from us. 

"Zion stands, with hills surrounded, 
Zion, kept by Power divine; 
All her foes shall be confounded, 
Though the world in arms combine; 

Happy Zion; 
What a favored lot is thine ! 

"In the furnace God may prove thee, 

Thence to bring thee forth more bright; 
But can never cease to love thee ; 
Thou art precious in His sight. 

God is with thee — 
God, thine everlasting Light." 



100 PATRIOTISM. 

Weakness, in our great Commanders army, 
never necessitates failure. He is an inexhaustible 
Fountain. Are we circumscribed ? He is omni- 
present. Are we ignorant ? He is omniscient. Are 
we weak ? He is omnipotent. He is the full-handed 
Partner — the unfailing Backer in every Jericho 
struggle, in every high and holy enterprise. It is 
but ours to: 

"Watch and fight and pray, 
The battle ne'er give o'er; 
Renew it boldly every day, 
And help divine implore." 

Many, I doubt not, have read the journals of the 
celebrated Charles R. Darwin. In 1832 he made a 
tour of the world, and on a distant coast discovered 
a people unspeakably barbarous. They had reached 
the lowest ebb. To him, they were beyond recov- 
ery. Philosophy, science, even religion — all were 
of no avail, according to Darwin's thinking. 

But at that very moment God was planning the 
rescue of that long-benighted and beastly people — 
planning, in a mysterious way, His wonders to per- 
form. A parentless, friendless babe was picked up 
on Thomas street, between the bridges, in Bristol, 
England. Having no name, he was christened 
Thomas Bridges — "Thomas" for the street on which 
he was found, and ''Bridges" because found between 
two bridges. God called him to go to those very 
people who had so horrified the great Darwin. The 
church was well nigh faithless in the enterprise; but 



VICTORY. 101 

at last yielded to his burning entreaties, and sent 
him. He translated the Bible into their language: 
he preached Jesus; he practiced his heavenly pro- 
fession, and the tribe was won. England, formerly 
afraid to land her ships at their shores, now opened 
up communications, and even Darwin became a 
patron of those foreign missions. How were they 
saved ? By liberal doses of a Christless Christianity ? 
by agnosticism, rationalism or pseudo- free-thought ? 
Ah, no ! By the simple story of our great Com- 
mander, and the Christly life of the missionary. 

God help us, comrades, in life's great and rapidly- 
closing campaign, to both tell the story and exem- 
plify it in our daily lives. And to our great Com- 
mander, the Lord God Omnipotent, we will give all 
the glory, for: 

"When that illustrious day shall rise, 
And all Thine armies shine, 
In robes of victory through the skies, 
The glory shall be thine." 



If solid happiness we prize, 
Within our breast the jewel lies; 

And they are fools who roam; 
The world has nothing to bestow; 
From our own selves our joys must flow, 

And that dear hut our home. 

— Cotton. 

Earth has more awful ruins— one lost mind, 
Whose star is quenched, hath lessons for mankind 
Of deeper import than each prostrate dome, 
Mingling its marble with the dust of Rome. 

There is an hour when vain remorse 
First wakes in her eternal force; 
When pardon may not be retrieved, 
When conscience will not be deceived. 

— Remans. 



(xvi.) 



RED LIGHTS 



CHAPTER VII. 



RED LIGHTS. 

Light ! Agency of God ! First in point of crea- 
tion and importance; bringing with its rays subjects 
for the philosopher, thoughts for the poet and knowl- 
edge to the student. 

King of forces ! Prince of agencies ! With a 
force unknown and irresistible, it converts the dark 
earth into woody fibre, beautiful leaf , delicate flower, 
delightful perfume and delicious fruit. 

The life and execution of the law of growth — soil, 
seed, air and heat — move at nature's command; but 
move to little purpose, until the chemical force of 
light moves them to the inherent capabilities of 
growth, and leads forth into life, beauty and bounti- 
ful harvests. 

This wonderful agency we call light, controls the 
the winds; because of it they blow in gentle zephyrs, 
or are lashed by the fury of the tempest; by it mists 
rise, rains fall, snows cover the mountains, to feed 
rivers, and keep the Niagaras thundering from age 
to age. At its command grasses spring up and cover 
the earth, forests lift their heads and withstand the 
sweeping tempests. 

From this glory, seen in morning chariots, earth is 
(102) 



LIGHT. 103 

freighted with coal. These coal mines are only a con- 
densed form of sunlight, transformed to do work on 
sea and land, by turning the wheels of industry, to 
wake the slumbers of the valley and forest, render- 
ing vocal the flinty forces of old earth. 

Who wonders that God should appear in this em- 
blem, and say to mortals: "I make the out-goings of 
the morning and evening to rejoice ? " And what 
wonder that poets sing: 

"The rising sun, serenely bright, 

Throughout the world's extended frame, 
Inscribes, in characters of light, 
His mighty Maker's glorious name." 

As a messenger of good, none moves so quickly, 
and yet safely. Swiftness almost inconceivable ! 
186,000 miles a second, or 11,160,000 miles a min- 
ute. And this it does every minute, age after age; 
never waiting for supply or magnet to reinforce it 
in its ever-onward flight. It illumines worlds, floods 
space, and yet never forgets to cheer the drooping 
vine, and rejoice the eye and heart of every child of 

earth. 

"Day-spring of eternity ! 
Dawn on us this morning tide." 

But still another office held by this indescribable 
gift is worthy of thought: 

"God said: 'Let there be light;' 
Grim darkness felt His might, 

And fled away; 
Then startled seas and mountains cold 
Shone forth, all bright in blue and gold, 
And cried, ' 'Tis day, 'tis day.' 



104 PATKIOTISM. 

" 'Hail, holy light!' exclaimed 
The thundrous cloud, that flamed 

O'er daisies white; 
And, lo! the rose, in crimson dressed, 
Leaned sweetly on the lily's breast, 
. And, blushing, murmured: 'Light.' " 

The revealer! As such, its wonders are untold, 
unexplorable. Men have, by its aid, explored the 
tropics of Africa, reached Arctic centers, felt along 
the ocean's bed, and counted nature's pulse; but still 
their guide and revealer remains, with unimparted 
secrets, to guide the Newtons of time into new and 
unvisited realms of hidden glories. In this office 
light has seven representatives: The red, orange, 
yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. To each is 
given a peculiar significance; and to the red is given 
that of warning. All along our railways and sea- 
coasts is seen this warning light; and none in com- 
mand dare pass it unheeded. That this is wise, all 
agree, for railroad accidents are many and sad; but 
the moral wrecks along the way of life are more, 
and sadder. The dikes, reared by our fathers, no 
longer hold. The uplifted tide bears in upon us 
from the sea of modern temptations, and the most 
sacred interests suffer. Every fortress is entered by 
the fiends of vice. Philanthropists have exhausted 
their source of strength in support of positions 
taken; but the drama of old becomes the massacre 
of to-day. 

Science has entered every chamber and cell, where 
secret forces were stored, until mountains bow, 



LOAFERS. 105 

clouds tarry, and join with ocean depth and rocky 
cell, in offering the fossilized experience of the ages 
in warnings, only to be scorned by the sophomores 
in vice. 

The Christian's church, once the house of purity 
and the throne of integrity, has turned too largely 
from the work of character-building to that of senti- 
ment and entertainment, until the Samaritans are 
all out of breath, running after religious tramps. 

But where shall we place this red light — this 
warning signal ? 

First, I would place one at the loafers' corner — 
one of the most dangerous places in our land. I 
once saw written on a board, nailed to a tree over- 
hanging Niagara: "Two men fell here." This was 
a warning; and while only two men of the many 
who have been coming and going for the last two 
hundred years have fallen, yet a constant warning 
remains. Every day, hour — yea, every minute, 
hundreds are falling at the loafers' corner, into 
depths more ruinous than Niagara's foaming waters. 
Give me knowledge of a boy's leisure hours, and I 
will give you a history of his life. If they are filled 
with plans for usefulness, he will appear, sooner or 
later, in eminence among his fellow-men.. 

Nothing can curse a community so much as a 
class of men and women who have no regular busi- 
ness; for they not only consume without producing, 
but they are almost always tattlers; and they hear 
and tell too much, having nothing else to do but 



106 PATRIOTISM. 

listen and repeat. God dares not trust the angels 
in idleness; hence he employs them as ministering 
spirits. 

Idleness begets evil; and the lounger about the 
base -ball grounds and billiard saloon never produces 
anything to bless society, or benefit the world. 
Hundreds and thousands have been waiting for ten 
years for the hard times to pass by; just as the man 
sat upon the banks of a river, waiting for it to run 
dry, so that he could cross without effort. While 
they tarry, forests and prairies have been waiting 
for their coming; with offers of reward. Time is 
money; and no man need spend one single moment 
in idleness or unrewarded labor. Idleness is pov- 
erty, and leads to immorality. A loafer is always a 
grumbler. He broods upon his difficulties until, 
like well-nursed cubs, they become great bears. 
Thought must be touched by impulse, before it 
lives. Many thought of the wire, electrified; but 
Morse brought to his thought action; and to-day 
we feel the throbs of his brain. Go, then, hang a 
light in the loafers' camp; for nothing on earth is so 
much to be despised as a chronic, grumbling old 
loafer. 

Secondly, I would place a red light — a signal of 
danger — in our homes. 

It cost our fathers too much to overcome the for- 
ests, climate and natives, to forget homes and the 
comforts they gave us. They were more to them 
than a place of resort. 



HOMES. 107 

They were Edenic altars, from which they gazed 
up into heaven, to see Him who came with His 
angels, to hang out the stars, and put up the sun 
and moon for their comfort. They felt that angels 
swept the garden dews, and gave the morning note. 
Oh, for one general epidemic of home-sickness, that 
this subject might be more fully appreciated. 

For homes measure the nation's strength; and he 
or she who cloeth most for homes, does most for the 
nation and posterity. 

To give a child a moral bent, such as will ripen 
and mature in chastity, virtue and honor, is the 
noblest work of men or angels. This our mothers 
did; and I am sometimes led to ask if the daughters, 
with ballot and speech, will do more than their moth- 
ers with Bible and song. 

To-day, the children of this age can be moved by 
any question that takes hold of the purity and chas- 
tity of home; and an army could be raised to war 
against the evils threatening the homes of America 
quicker, and at less expense, than for any other pur- 
pose. This question lives in all American hearts. 

Homes, with our fathers, were institutions of 
learning, out of which came men and women skilled 
in all the practical sciences of the age. They had 
been taught by one who was cook, nurse, teacher, 
trainer and guide; an A. M., who could fill the 
child with real conviction. Now, every department 
has its head; for the social compacts claim the moth- 
er's attention. 



108 PATRIOTISM. 

Home is the place of reception, to-day; a sleeping 
and dressing-hall; while rinks, balls, operas, thea- 
tres and festivals claim time and energy. 

The children are strangers to father, and see little 
of mother. 

The old-time home is exchanged for hotel life and 
the cafe. 

The time, once filled with home interests, is now 
too often given to the attention of other men, who 
have no home; and the most sacred covenants are 
dissolved in jealousies, and families are scattered in 
ruin. 

Every mail brings to our notice some horrible ac- 
count of apostasy, elopement and suicide, with de- 
tailed account of procedure. 

I would not take a pessimistic view of life; but I 
want to ask one legitimate question: What is to 
save the land from the surging tides of influence 
now sweeping over our homes from saloon and club- 
house? How shall we escape from this sad con- 
dition ? 



RED LIGHTS — CONTINUED 



CHAPTER VIII. 



RED LIGHTS. — CONTINUED. 

Some say, by giving all the facts to the people, 
and our journalists seem bent on this line; but I 
question the propriety of feeding the surging multi- 
tude with this kind of matter; and certainly there is 
danger in educating the vicious in the tricks and 
plots of robbers, murderers and adulterers, if it is 
true that all men build their fire out of the material 
in hand, and think the thoughts suggested by their 
surroundings. There is danger in filling the mind 
with detailed accounts of murders, suicides, embez- 
zlements and elopements. 

There are others who seem to think that boys 
must sow their ''wild oats,'* before they can enter a 
life of usefulness; but my observation has taught me 
that he who sows wild oats will reap wild oats; and 
Christians make a serious mistake when they give 
their boys to the society of the saloon and loafers' 
corner, dance or theatre, and depend upon a revival 
of religion to make them chaste, pure and holy. 
Reforms do not reform them; revivals do not save 
them. Holland is right. There is but one way to 
rid ourselves of rascals, and that is, to stop raising 
(109) 



110 PATRIOTISM. 

them. We have imprisoned them, fined them, 
hanged them. We have tried to reform them; 
blessed and cursed them; and still the stock is not 
diminished. One dies; two take his place. Our 
only hope is in the purity of the homes, where char- 
acter is shaped, directed and matured. 

First, then, let the people build houses, and live 
in them. 

It is generally conceded that the ownership of real 
estate, particularly of a home, is requisite to a full 
appreciation of the responsibilities of citizenship. 
For this reason, it is a matter of no small moment 
that what are known as building and loan associa- 
tions have been attended by very gratifying results 
in the East. In Pennsylvania there are eighteen 
hundred of them, fully three hundred being now in 
active operation in Philadelphia. The principle of 
these associations is quite simple. A number of per- 
sons organize an association, primarily for the pur- 
pose of saving money, and agree to pay into the 
general fund every month a certain amount. When 
this fund, which is greatly increased by making safe 
loans at high interest to those desiring to build 
houses, and by premiums and fines, reaches a given 
sum, it is distributed, under certain conditions, to 
the members according to the number of shares they 
possess. As a rule, business men of acknowledged 
ability and honesty are at the head of these institu- 
tions; and it is the rarest thing for them to collapse 
through mismanagement or rascality. 



HOME-BUILDING. Ill 

The direct benefit of such associations is two- fold. 
They hold out a strong inducement to people to save 
money, taking good care of it, and making larger 
returns for its use than could be obtained in almost 
any other legitimate way. But what is of much 
greater importance, it gives them the opportunity 
to secure, on easy terms, homes of their own. It is 
probable that the many thousands of houses which 
have been built through these associations represent 
nearly that number of distinct owners, who could 
not, or would not, have become such, had it not been 
for the help they received from these associations. 

Estimating that each of these houses is occupied 
by a family of three, which is below the average, 
over one million persons have thus been helped to 
homes. And, while the}? - have been benefited in this 
way, a much larger number have been trained to 
save money. This is what has already been accom- 
plished; and these associations are still operating. 
Their influence upon the country is beyond all esti- 
mate. They are producing a large and growing class 
of conservative tradesmen and artisans; they are 
conducing to thrift and economy; they are exalting 
family life by making the ideal home possible; they 
are holding out a new purpose to men; they are in- 
directly working against the saloon, dishonesty, and 
those habits and vices that lessen the chances of 
business success; and they are putting men in such re- 
lation to society, that they cannot easily be influenced 
by the doctrines of the socialists and anarchists. 



- 112 PATRIOTISM. 

The results that have been accomplished in Phila- 
delphia in this respect, ought to multiply in every 
city and town in the United States. The need of 
such associations, already great, is continually be- 
coming greater. Every year thousands of immi- 
grants come to this country; the cities are becom- 
ing overcrowded; the tendency of wages is toward 
the European level; the socialists are busy in sowing 
discontent among the laboring classes, and the strife 
between capital and labor has not reached a point 
where a speedy and happy adjustment may be ex- 
pected. 

In this condition of things the building associa- 
tions can be made a great and conservative factor in 
social questions. They should be generally encour- 
aged, and every man who establishes one on a firm 
and honest basis is a benefactor to the community 
in which he lives. 

Secondly: Let the people marry, in view of 
home-making. 

I have no sympathy with the idea of single bless- 
edness, or late marriage. An early marriage, and 
a happy life, have led me to advocate early, and uni- 
versal marriages. But the divorce laws of this age 
have so robbed this service of its significance, that 
marriage is fast becoming a thing of probation. 
Many get married on trial, with the settled convic- 
tion that if they don't like it, they can get a divorce, 
and return to the glory of single blessedness. 

Marriage implies too much that is sacred in its 



UNFITNESS. 113 

designs, too intimate in its relations, for any one to 
embrace it without thought. It is the most sol- 
emn and sacred work of life to court, in view of 
marriage. Be careful, young man, when love 
first moves toward a fair-faced maid. Life is too 
real, to be lost in fading beauties. The gay romp, 
boisterous and coquettish, may fill the eye, and 
tempt the fancy. But does she fill the mind and 
heart? Is there substantial worth in character? 
Has she high and elevating motives, with moulding 
thoughts ? Care here will save many to happiness 
and peace; but the haste with which this solemn 
contract is entered into to-day, surpasses even the 
Chinese custom of other days. The Chinaman never 
sees his bride until the day of marriage, when she is 
brought in a chair, veiled, and locked in her sedan. 
Then a key is given to the bridegroom, and he un- 
locks the chair, lifts the veil and looks into the face 
of his treasure; and yet he knows more than one-half 
of the men of this day, as to the real character and 
fitness of the person, for he has been waiting, and 
in thought, studying, the person whom he now takes 
as his bride. 
With us, 

"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare; 
And mammon finds his way where seraphs might despair." 

Such maidens forget to respect themselves. They 
will be seen leaning upon a man's arm, while he 
blows the poison of a two-cent cigar into their faces. 
They will find an excuse for the stumbling step of 



114 PATRIOTISM. 

an escort who went to the saloon before the evening 
walk. They pound pianos, with no regard to time 
or harmony, while mother is at work. 

Such girls will never be ladies; for the first mean- 
ing of that word is "bread-maker." They will 
marry at sight. 

A young woman writes to a friend, from their 
new home: "Aunt, I think I shall enjoy my hus- 
band, after I get acquainted with him." 

But many young men are as unfit for the honor of 
marriage as many young ladies are. 

An idler from choice never ought to be permitted 
to think of matrimony; for the proverb is true: 
"Idle men are the devil's tools." They must always 
be the object of another's spite. Their misfortunes 
will be the result of another's injury. They will 
excuse themselves upon the ground that others are 
worse. They fall into unfortunate circumstances, 
with no power to break the chain, and soon become 
the pets of charity's sunshine. 

Ladies, if you marry such men, you will find a 
chance to be slaves, rather than helpmeets. 

Beware of intemperate men — lovers of wine and 
tobacco; for one vice will tend to brutality, and the 
other to imbecility. 

I solemnly wish that -it was an impossibility for 
an intemperate man or woman ever to enter the 
sacred precincts of married life. I say this after 
years in the pastorate. 

Marriage is the mother of worlds, the preserver of 



HOME-LIFE. 115 

kingdoms. It is to fill cities, churches and eternities. 
Such responsibilities are not to be entered upon 
thoughtlessly, as pleasure-seekers sing of: "Happy 
morn, clad in the beauty of a thousand stars," but 
with a just appreciation of responsibilities, to be 
worn gracef ully, in view of honors conferred. 

I wish it might become the law of this land, that 
once married, should mean, always married. That, 
as Spurgeon put it: "If we catch a Tartar, we were 
obliged to take a dose of tartaric acid." Then there 
would be no feeling like that expressed by a young 
man to his friend, after six months of married life: 
"Well, John, how about the treasure you took six 
months ago ? " "Ah," said John, "I wish I could 
lay my treasure up in heaven, for a rest. " 

There need be no such feeling. A little good 
sense, with patience, will bring the most uncongenial 
into the most heavenly unison. 

Like the meeting of two rivers, there may be strife 
and confusion; and it may seem as if these two 
could never live together; and there is less hope if 
they have taken their ideas from the sickening trash 
written on these lines. But let patience do her per- 
fect work; and let it be understood that there is no 
release, and they will soon move on in strength and 
harmony, without a trace of strife, like youder ma- 
jestic river. 

The most expensive and elegant homes of our city 
are not always the most pleasant. I have in mind 
some homes where the very atmosphere is laden 



116 PATRIOTISM. 

with welcome — whose courtesies disarm criticism, 
and debar the slanderer — homes born in self-forget- 
fulness and charity, where wounded spirits never 
sleep in tears of regret. 

If we would have such homes, we must turn aside 
all that belittles and destroys, and bring in all that 
will elevate and ennoble. 

Near a large village in Europe is a beautiful gar- 
den, in which grow all kinds of fruits and flowers. 

I am told that it was once a lone morass, sending 
forth poison and death; but skilled hands have turned 
aside the stream of poison, and washed the meadows 
with pure water from the spring in the mountains; 
and now cleansed, the seed is bringing forth sweetest 
flowers, with richest fruits. 

So we must turn aside the streams of sorrow and 
sin, and bring in the sunbeams of gladness. Then 
shall Ave have joy and purity. Sunbeams never die; 
they may be gathered up and buried in the cold, 
black mines; but set the mine on fire, and at once 
they reappear. The light of our city to-night is 
from the sunbeams of other days. 

But if you want to bring a cloud over the home 
that no sun can penetrate, find fault with your wife 
in public. Try hard to keep the house untidy. 
Always have the last word yourself. Never allow 
her to think her soul is her own. Never give in, 
even if you know you are wrong. Quarrel with her 
one day, and humor her the next. Never lend a 
helping hand in her work, when you know she is 



BEAUTY, 117 

sick. Never offer to stay with the children, so that 
she can walk out with a friend. Vow vengeance on 
all her female friends, and insult all her male friends. 
Pay no attention to the household needs; then scold 
because the butcher's and grocer's bills are so large. 
Tell her as plainly as possible you married her to 
help you get a living. Find fault before you know 
the circumstances of any case. 

Ladies, if you want to destroy the love your hus- 
band has for home, never have meals ready in time. 
Run bills without his knowledge. Let him sew the 
buttons on his shirts himself. A celebrated humor- 
ist has well said that, ' 'Man can get along without 
a shirt; but to have a button off is unendurable." 
Tell him that the children inherit all their mean 
traits of character from his side of the house. Let 
it out sometimes, when you are vexed, that you wish 
you had married some other fellow "that you used 
to go with," and the chances are that he will wish 
the same. 

A man has an eye for beauty in his wife. He 
notices the soft wave of her hair, and fit of her dress, 
with a sort of pleasurable pride, even after time and 
trials have dimmed the glamour of first love. The 
successful wife must represent to her husband all 
the virtues; must be sympathetic, and at the same 
time sensible. She must be bright, entertaining, 
and agreeable, at home as well as abroad; and she 
must know how to preserve silence, when it is desir- 
able to hold her tongue, even though she is ready to 



118 PATRIOTISM. 

burst with indignation. If she does not possess 
these qualities, let her cultivate them most assidu- 
ously. And there is no trait that is such a powerful 
factor in household harmony as assimilation — to be- 
come one in thought and purpose, to have kindred 
wishes. The theory of the affinity of opposites 
was hopelessly exploded long ago. 

We are often shocked by what appears to be a 
sudden development of evil, appearing in brutal 
tragedy; but invariably it is traceable to the reading 
of pernicious literature, until the thought is fired 
with dangerous adventures, and goes forth to ex- 
periment. 

The cry of the age is for something thrilling, 
something brilliant. Often brilliancy is the price of 
wealth. In 1812 a ship was set on fire on the Niag. 
ara, and the moorings cut. As it floated down the 
river, it was a grand picture. It was brilliant to the 
spectators, but it meant ruin to the owners. 

So this effort to thrill with brilliant stories is often 
at the expense of that thought which makes charac- 
ter; and attending angels weep over genius on fire 
with passion, for the amusement of simple minds. 

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen; 
But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

Be careful in the selection of your libraries. 
In this age the humblest home may bring all into 
communion with the heart of Carvosso, thoughts of 



WINE. 119 

Newton, and power of Napoleon. The child may 
learn to reason with Choate, minister with a Bell, or 
a Butler; sing with a \Yatts, pray with a Pay son and 
organize with a Wesley. 

To-day, books are within reach of the humblest 
poor; and he who says he has no time to read, sim- 
ply says: "I have no disposition to read, no taste for 
reading." 

Remember, it is the full mind that is able to 
bless. The track over which the western trains go 
east, laden with wheat, is rich in green, ever-grow- 
ing grain; while the track by its side, over which 
empty trains pass, on their return, is as barren as 
the house floor. 

So with filled and empty minds. Full minds 
bless. Thinking minds make ready men and wo- 
men. Govern the conversation of home, and you 
may train the boys and girls to use what they 
know. 

Be careful what you bring into the home. 

At a late convention, held in Boston, the wine 
question was freely discussed; and one clergyman 
advocated a moderate use of the lighter drinks as 
the only safe course; whereupon an old man arose 
and said: "I am just from the grave of my son, who 
fell into the awful curse of intemperance; but, after 
years, he reformed, and made glad my heart. He 
was devout and earnest; but one evening, at the 
table of a clergyman, he accepted wine, drank, and 
died with delirium tremens, and rests in a drunk- 



120 PATRIOTISM. 

ard's grave; and that clergyman was the gentleman 
who has just now advocated moderate drinking." 
Be careful what you bring into the home. 

Next, I would fill the home with music — music 
that can never be destroyed. 

Tenting in this earthly wilderness for a little 
while, let every home keep singing helpful, pure, 
inspiring songs. 

Music is more than a refiner; it empowers for use- 
fulness. Oft-times, in hours of gloom and despond- 
ency, music has come, as if clothed with omnipotent 
power and majesty, to snatch victory out of the very 
jaws of defeat'. 

"Hail, heaven-born music; by thy power we raise 
The uplifted soul, to acts of highest praise. 
Oh! I would die, with music melting round, 
And float to bliss upon a sea of sound." 

I dare not close without a word about the Friend 
of all homes. 

A mother, writing on a blackboard Paul's won- 
derful text, wrote: u This is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came into 
the world to save sinners, of whom 1 am chief." 
"Mother," said the child, "you have left Jesus 
out." 

Too many homes of culture and refinement are 
leaving Jesus out; you had better leave all else out. 

There is an old legend of the White Hand. There 
was a king who gloried, not in pomp or power, but 
in deeds of love. He scattered gifts for the poor. 



A FABLE. 121 

One da} 7 a bishop seized his hand and blessed it, say- 
ing: "May this fair hand, this bounteous hand, never 
grow old." 

That king was slain in battle; and, as the custom 
was, his limbs were taken off and exposed to public 
gaze; and long after all the rest had perished, that 
hand remained unchanged, pointing upward toward 
heaven. 

Jesus is to every home that hand; constantly min- 
istering in unselfish devotion, and will remain, pure 
and white, in the heaven of glory, after earthly 
honors have faded, and crowns and -wels are per- 
ished. 

There is another old picture, in which mother ap- 
pears asleep at the wheel, while angels come to fan 
her brow, cool the weary head, and gather up the 
half-finished work, to complete it. Old, yet true to 
the faithful ones, what we cannot do, angels, who 
are our ministers, will finish. 

The angel who came when Peter, John and James 
slept, will come when weariness overcomes. 

Yet another fable, of an old monk, who had care 
of the poor, and went at given times to feed them. 
While at prayer, his cell was lighted, and the Saviour 
appeared. In silent bliss, the old man gazed on his 
Lord. When the bell rang, calling him to his duty, 
he immediately went to his humble work. When 
he returned, he found his Lord had tarried, and said 
to him: "Hadst thou remained, I should have fled." 

Don't leave Jesus out of the home. 



RED LIGHTS — CONCLUDED 



CHAPTER IX. 



RED LIGHTS. — CONCLUDED. 

We learn of the life of nations through the history 
of their great cities. Indeed, very little is known of 
the race, prior to the coming of Jesus, save that 
given in the history of cities. 

Who shall measure the influence of London on 
the European and Asiatic mind of to-day \ He wlio 
lives to hear the bells of 1950 will find the life of 
America centered in ten or twelve large cities — New 
York, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, San Fran- 
cisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, 
and New Orleans — which will give direction to more 
than two hundred millions of people. 

What shall the nature of these great centers be, 
is the problem. More than two-thirds of the people 
of this country are native-born; and yet, in Chicago, 
ninety-two per cent, of our population are foreign- 
born, or the children of parents born in foreign 
lands. 

With few exceptions, the large percentage of those 
having any religious convictions, are Catholics. 

Chicago, with a population of 1,100,000, has over 
600,000 citizens who speak a foreign language. 
(122) 



A CRISIS. 123 

They are here to stay, having brought with them 
all their national peculiarities and prejudices. The 
ends of the earth are upon us, and we must meet 
them with the gospel, as the only possible solution 
of these social, civil and religious problems. The 
Christianity of to-clay means home, school, liberty, 
and development of character, regardless of sex; not 
that there has come any change to Christianity, per 
se. In its functions, electricity is the same to-day as 
jt was on the morning of creation; but the telegraph 
wire has been added; the telephone, electric light, 
and electric engine are now its servants. Christianity 
is the same yesterday, to-day and forever — is the re- 
production of the Christ-life in the flesh. 

Christians are to live, and to organize themselves 
into such bodies as will be most potent in producing 
a Christian civilization. 

I see the great church of God, for the most part, 
asleep over the volcano which is smouldering under 
us, whose fires are fed by the ignorance, supersti- 
tion and enmity of unenlightened and unchristian- 
ized thousands, for which almost nothing is being 
done. The crisis is upon us; can we meet it ? What 
will be the outcome, if we do not ? But one answer 
can be given. The church must arise in her power 
and might, and consecrate her prayers, her wealth, 
and her life to the evangelizing agencies in these 
great cities, or these great cities will be found in 
the hands of anarchists and socialists. 

A great English author has well said: '"America 



124 PATKIOTISM. 

for Christ, for the sake of the world." If we save 
our cities for Jesus and America, the world is safe. 
1 have recently read Archbishop Ireland's great 
sermon, from the text: "Thy soul strive for justice, 
and even unto death fight for justice, and God will 
overthrow thine enemies for thee. " In that sermon, 
he said: "Our work is to make America Catholic. 
If we love America, if we love the church, to mention 
the work suffices. Our cry shall be: 'God wills it ! ' 
and our hearts shall leap with crusader enthusiasm. 
We know the church is the sole owner of the truths 
and graces of salvation. Would we not that she pour 
upon the souls of friends and fellow-citizens the gifts 
of the incarnate God ? The touch of her divine-made 
hand will strengthen and sublimate the rich heritage 
of nature's virtues, which is the portion of America 
and America's children; it will super-add the deify- 
ing treasures of supernatural life. The Catholic 
church will confirm and preserve, as no human 
power, or human church can, the liberties of the 
republic. . . . The conversion of America 
should be ever present to the minds of Catholics in 
America, as a supreme duty, from which God will 
not hold them exempt. Whatever the record of the 
first century of church-life, the record of the second, 
if we are loyal to duty, will tell of wondrous exten- 
sion given to Christ's church, over the United States 
of America. I am aware that there are those among 
us who do not partake of my hopefulness. What 
can be done, they say, in America \ Catholics are a 



CATHOLICS. 125 

handful — ten millions in sixty-five — the few among 
the many, struggling amid temptations and preju- 
dices. The preservation of the little flock in the 
faith is a herculean task. Most ill-prepared are we 
to reach out in efforts to convert our fellow-citizens; 
nor are they disposed to hearken to words of ours. 
As to the burning questions agitating the world, the 
prospect of a solution that will satisfy the age, is 
remote. The sky above us is cloud-laden, and no 
glimmer of light pierces through it. The days of 
failing faith are upon us. The refuge of each one is 
to flee for his own safety to the mountains, and 
wait, in silence and prayer, the return of God's vivi- 
fying breath upon the nations. 

"So speak the great number of Catholics in 
Europe; so speak some in America. And, so long 
as they speak in this manner, the world will not be 
brought to God; and the enemies of the church will 
possess the age. But why this language of fear 
and distrust ? Let Catholics say why the triumphs 
of other days are not possible in our own time and 
country. The church to-day, as when she overthrew 
pagan Rome, and won over to grace ferocious 
Northmen, is the church of divine truth, and divine 
power. Her mission is to-day, as then, to teach all 
nations; to preach the gospel to every creature; and 
Christ is with her, even unto the consummation of 
ages: God's arm is not shortened. What can be 
wanting ? Our own resolute will to put to profit 
God's graces and God's opportunities. For thy 



126 PATRIOTISM. 

soul, fight for justice; even unto death, strive for 
justice." 

Ah, my brethren, if the Roman church entertains 
such convictions, and inspires its membership with 
such hopes, what ought to be our ambition, with 
the entire Protestant church with us in sympa- 
thy and effort ? At home, alive with the instincts 
of patriotism and devotion, such as the history of 
conflict has transmitted, and inspired with a history 
written in blood and tears, out of hearts touched by 
the divine pathos of an infinite God, what may we 
not expect, if true to our principles ? 

With a united effort of God's people, our large 
cities can be Christianized; but without it, that will 
not be done. There is a great need that Christians 
ponder this fact. 

I do not lose sight of the fact that "God must 
give the increase." I know that unless the Lord 
build the house, they labor in vain who build it; but 
my faith, says God, will give the increase. He will 
record his name on every altar erected in honor of 
His Son, Jesus; and where His name is recorded, 
He will come. 

There are times in the history o. the church when 
the needs can be met and answered by the men and 
women whom God hath endowed; and, if I read 
aright, that time is now. There is no need that we 
withdraw our natural efforts, in order that the super- 
natural may appear, for we shall never be able to 
eclipse God, in our co-laborship with Him. 



REACH. 127] 

Nay, let us do oip* utmost to answer the demands 
of the hour, in the securing of lots, in the erection 
of temples — the creation of harmony and melody, 
the gathering of the people, the proclamation of the 
truth as it is in Christ — and when we shall have done 
our "all," made our richest sacrifice, rendered our 
sweetest songs, offered our largest and best gifts, it 
will be a long way down to the nethermost depths, 
out to the outmost limit, and up to the highest flight 
of human need. 

But when we shall have reached as far as we can, 
God can reach the rest of the way, and will. Said a 
little child, who had fallen into a cistern, when 
asked by her mother if she was not afraid, answered: 
"No; for I knew if I reached as far as I could, you 
could reach the rest of the way, and save me." The 
great father and mother heart of God is not going 
to see His church perish in the floods of infidelity and 
Catholicism. It cost too much to prepare this land, 
as I verily believe, for the last act in the play of 
Christianity, to allow it to suffer such disaster. If 
we do our part, God will save his people. 

What are we doing ? Something; but nothing in 
comparison to what we might and should do. 

Like the famous Japanese, who put his sacred, 
snow-capped, deity-haunted mountain into the back- 
ground of every picture, so ought every Christian 
heart to bring its best works, richest gifts, sweetest 
songs and purest devotions into the home work, un- 
til every interest along the shore life of humanity is 



128 PATKIOTISM. 

touched by the spirit of Him who said: "I -must 
work the works of Him who sent Me, while it is 
day." 

Bat how shall this work be done ? you ask. First, 
by a new conception of Him, "whose we are, and 
whom we serve." 

Communion with God will open to us his treas- 
ure-house; and then we shall come to see that our 
God is unlike all other Gods, and feel, with Sol- 
omon, that the house we build is great, for great is 
our God above all gods. 

Shut a man up w r ith God until he sees His boun- 
tiful benificence, and he will desire to give and do, 
to the measure of his ability. The moment Zacheus 
saw the claims of the gospel, he said: "The half of 
my goods I give to feed the poor." 

Oh, that w T e could get Elijah's view of Jehovah ! 
Then would we confound the prophets of Baal, and 
see the thousands converted, as when Peter preached 
to the Jews, and Wesley proclaimed, with new em- 
phasis: "God so loved the world, that He gave His 
only begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth in 
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

The one work of infidelity to-clay is to hide God, 
knowing that in the church's conception of the su- 
pernatural is her power. So, in order to abolish the 
light, they seek to veil the sun. Brethren, though 
we see not yet all things put under Him, we do see 
Jesus; and in Him is all needed help. Let us make 
our demands in view of the great God, and, like 



THE BEST. 129 

Solomon, call for the wealth of the world, and the 
service of kings. Hiram, of Tyre, was not too 
great to work on the temple. Our God giveth lib- 
erally. Go to little men for little things, to God 
for great things. 
John Newton sings: 

"Thou art coming to a King; 
Large petitions with thee bring, 
For His grace and power are such, 
None can ever ask too much." 

Let us ask for the best. When the vision touched 
the eyes of the Macedonian clergy, they cried for 
help; and for whom did they ask ? Paul, the great- 
est man God ever made. Now, if God can afford 
to create new suns to illumine dark places in His 
kingdom, we ought to be willing to ask for them; 
and if he can afford to send a band of angels to escort 
a beggar home to glory, we can afford to beg our 
way through the world, and carry the light of truth 
into the dark corners of the earth. God help us to 
rise to our feet, that we may see our Gocl, and in 
His name claim the world for Him. Never were a 
people more favorably situated to do a great work 
than the Christian people of this country. 

Thirdly, we need a baptism of enthusiasm, to rid 
us of ail selfishness. "Beware of an enthusiast," 
says an old sage. Yes; we may, if he is after us; 
for he is ten times himself when enthused. 

We are all of one mind as to the work before us; 
and, I doubt not, we have all decided to do more on 



130 PATRIOTISM. 

this line. What we want is enthusiasm to exe- 
cute the sentence thus rendered, as Cromwell's Iron- 
sides and the men of Gettysburg had. I believe the 
great day of enthusiasm is yet to come; and some 
of us will live to see a mighty outburst of irresistible 
forces, such as will sweep us beyond the outposts of 
the most aggressive of to-day. Oh, that it might 
come on us now. 

It is said that Peter the Great gave Russia a plan 
and standard, toward which the nation has been 
rushing, with ceaseless yearning, ever since. 

I would like to write all over our Zion, burn all 
through every heart of the church in this country, 
"America for God;" and then go out to execute; 
saying to all societies, in the language of a mission- 
ary, when told by the ambassador of Russia that 
the Imperial master would not allow what he taught 
to be established in Turkey: "May it please your 
excellency, my Master will not ask leave to establish 
His kingdom at the hand of any man." 

The next and last red light shall be at the forks of 
the road leading into eternity. 

If we are to perish w 7 ith the clay, then cursed be 
the laws, customs and usages of society. But if, in 
the curtained future, there are doors out of time into 
eternity; if there are domains lying out in a shore- 
less sea, then awful is the thought of this couplet: 

"It is not all of life to live, 
Nor all of death to die!" 



SIGN. 131 



Or 



'There is a land of pure delight, 

Where saints immortal reign; 
Infinite day excludes the night, 

And pleasures banish pain." 

Then look! In the mists is a form, radiant in 
smiles, robed in fadeless glory, by His side is a 
door; over it is written, in burning letters: "No 
drunkard can enter here! " Look, ye men of mod- 
erate drink. Look! 

Again : ' 'No whoremonger, sorcerer, idolater, mur- 
derer, or liar, can enter here! " Beware, oh man! 

Go, write at the forks of the road: ''Put not your 
trust in wealth;" for if, with Aquilla, you succeed 
in making for yourself a golden casket for a silver 
box, and be housed in an iron grave, your soul may 
go out into eternity unhonored and unattended, torn 
by the thorns of dark despair. 

The life is more than silver or gold ; greater than 
earth. Write: "Put not your trust in man! " He 
may compliment, respect and love you, but cannot 
safely pass you over the dark chasm of death. 

If, as with Grant, nations do you honor, they 
issue no ticket for the mansion house on high. 

Write: "Trust not in letters! " For when you 
shall have taken all the fossilized facts of earth's 
history, and swept the ocean's cabinets, and have 
sat you down in life's evening, to listen to the music 
of the spheres, you have only read the preface of 
the saints' book; and not a star will give the key to 
eternity's first chapter. 



132 PATRIOTISM. 

"Farther on ! Oh, how much farther? 
Count the mile-stones, one by one; 
No, not counting, only trusting; 
It is better farther on." 

Be true and spotless; for there is nothing higher, 
in earth or sky, than a pure soul, conscious of being 
right with its Maker. Before you can ever hear the 
"Well done," you must do well. 



AMERICA FOR AMERICANS 



I was born an American; 

I live an American; 

I shall die an American. 

— Webster. 

One kind of peace will never do- 
Peace tricked out for a day, 

With outside dress of Union blue 
And underclothes of gray. 

—Barker. 

The center of earth's noblest ring— 
Of more than men the more than king. 



O'er the dark and the gloomy horizon that bounds her 
Thro' the storm and the night and the hell that surrounds her, 
I can see with a faith which immortals have given, 
Burning words blazing out o'er the portals of heaven, 

"The Old Ship of State Will Live!" 
-She will live while a billow lies swelling before her, 
She will live while the blue arch of heavens bends o'er 
While the name of a Christ to the fallen we cherish, 
'Till the hopes in the breast of humanity perish, 
She will live. 

—Barker. 



(xvii.) 



CHAPTER X. 



AMERICA FOR AMERICANS. 

Every true American will see at a glance, that 
this is a subject in which he or she ought to be inter- 
ested. Did I ask that America might become Pres- 
byterian or Methodist, then those of other folds 
might object; or did I claim this country for native- 
born Americans alone, then 1 might rightfully be 
branded as a bigot. But I make no such claim, try 
to establish no such standard. A leading bishop of 
the Catholic church threw down the challenge in a 
•public congregation, by commencing his address 
with the words: "America for Catholicism." This, 
certainly, is a brave position for any man to take, 
having no larger constituency than is found in the 
Catholic church of America. I cannot help admir- 
ing his confidence, and calling attention to the hero- 
ism of his faith. 

Men are apt to feel that the body to which they 
belong, or represent, is the largest and most import- 
ant body in the world, and surest of success. 

Some days ago a reporter entered my study and 
called my attention to four Methodist ministers who 
were in trouble with their people; and, in an excited 
(133) 



134 PATRIOTISM. 

manner, said: "The Methodist church is certainly 
going to pieces; here is trouble in Milwaukee, Chi- 
cago, Buffalo and Newark; no church can stand such 
a strain." I said to him: "My friend, you have 
made this number too small. There are twelve 
Methodist ministers in trouble. You are looking at 
the kickers, twelve in number; and because of the 
fuss and flurry these twelve men are making with 
their people, you have concluded that the whole 
Methodist church is going to pieces. Now, let us 
look at the 12,988 Methodist ministers who are not 
having trouble, but are in harmony with their peo- 
ple, themselves and their God; men of whom you 
have forgotten to speak, and to whom you have 
given no thought." 

There is no cause for alarm in this country, if the 
American people do their duty, and Protestants are 
true to the principles they advocate. 

Catholicism has 10,000,000 communicants, 8,000 
clergymen, 10,000 churches and chapels, and 650 
colleges and academies. Cardinal Gibbons said, .in 
his speech, at the laying of the corner stone of St. 
Peter's Catholic church, Washington, D. C. : "I 
greatly rejoice in the* growth of our church. We 
have in this country 9,000,000 members." They 
have more than that; they have 10,000,000; which is 
one to every six and one-half persons. Now, it is 
not a great achievement that from birth and immi- 
gration the whole Catholic world should be able to 
count 10,000,000 followers on these shores. 



CATHOLICS. 135 

There are two Protestant churches, each of which 
outnumbers thern; and four others that come very 
near to them. Hence, in a hand-to-hand conflict, we 
belittle ourselves by crying, when we have six Prot- 
estants to one Catholic. Nevertheless, they are a 
mighty power in this country, because of their wise, 
sagacious, self-sacrificing, far-seeing leadership. 

First, they are laying hold on the centers of power 
— the cities. The history of this race is largely 
found in the records of the cities. Twelve cities, 
to-day, govern largely the commercial, social and 
political life of this republic. 

In 1800 there were but six cities with 8,000 in- 
habitants; now there are 286, some of which have 
reached the million line. 

The London Spectator is fully convinced that 
American strength, if it were once fully exerted, 
would be irresistible by any European State. It acids : 
No State, however powerful, will ever again do with 
ease anything to which the American republic is 
strongly opposed. There is no diplomatist in Europe 
who does not know this, or who does not hold that 
Napoleon III. was only sane in quitting Mexico, 
and that Prince Bismarck showed his wisdom when, 
rather than quarrel seriously with Washington, he 
abandoned all pretensions in Samoa. " 

These are significant words. Already, as the 
Spectator points out, this republic surpasses Great 
Britain in population, as a century hence it will sur- 
pass, in all probability, the entire population of 



136 PATRIOTISM. 

Europe. The American people, wrapped up in 
their domestic affairs and the excitements of rapidly- 
recurring Presidential campaigns, take no thought 
of the condition of the nations be} 7 ond the seas. It 
is not self -consciousness that leads to this abstrac- 
tion, nor is it self-satisfaction with our natural re- 
sources, and the insurmountable barrier to invasion 
which the Atlantic and Pacific oceans maintain. 

Here the people look at matters in a far different 
light from nations on the continent and in Great 
Britain. There peace depends upon an armed neu- 
trality. Each nation watches the other with a jeal- 
ous eye and sleepless vigilance. Every movement 
by one for the erection of new fortifications, the 
increase of its naval equipment or its army, is im- 
mediately followed by redoubled efforts of other 
governments to make themselves secure and their 
frontiers impregnable. Thus peace is purchased at 
a frightful expenditure, not only of the nation's 
wealth, but of the people's tranquility. 

With us, there is no fear of Canada on the north 
or Mexico and the Central American States on the 
south. No standing army consumes the people's 
substance, and but a meagre handful of men is re- 
quired for all the arts of war. Peaceful pursuits, 
the application of human ingenuity, industry, and 
purpose to the accumulation of wealth, to the edu- 
cation, refinement and uplifting of the people, en- 
gage the attention of the citizens. Is it to be 
wondered at that our neighbors across the sea, 



OPPORTUNITIES. 137 

looking with covetous eyes on this peaceful, pros- 
perous and powerful land, supremely content in its 
isolation, seek to foster and maintain the most cor- 
dial relations with it ? 

In 1900, ten or twelve cities will control 100,000,- 
000 people. Now, the Catholic fathers see this, and 
are laying their plans to capture these cities. They 
do not move into the suburbs, to make for them- 
selves comfortable and pleasant homes; but they live 
with their people, in order that they may elect the 
officers who command these centers. 

We Americans boast that we outnumber them in 
the country, forgetting that the influence of a man 
in a country town, with from one to three thousand 
inhabitants, is not one-thousandth part of that of a 
mayor, alderman, supervisor or chief of police in a 
city like Chicago or New York. 

My life, up to 1875, was spent largely in a little 
town of not a thousand inhabitants. My ministry 
was in the villages of New England. But since 
coming to Chicago, my soul has been on a stretch, 
day and night, toward the matchless privilege and 
responsibility of citizenship in one of the twelve 
great centers of this republic. For I see the insti- 
tutions established by the fathers greatly endan- 
gered; while the great Protestant church is largely 
asleep, on the verge of civil commotion; and the 
tires beneath our feet are being fed by superstition, 
socialism, anarchy and infidelity. When shall we 
awake and know our danger and see our privileges ? 



138 PATEIOTISM. 

"The importance of the possession of America to 
the cause of religion cannot well be overestimated. 
It is a providential nation. How youthful, and yet 
how great! How rich in glorious promise! A hun- 
dred years ago the States exceeded but little the 
third million in population; to-day they approach the 
sixty-fifth million. Streams of immigration from 
the lands of the earth are turned toward us. There 
is, manifestly, much of value in our soil and air, in 
our social and political institutions, that the world's 
throngs are drawn to us. The country is one that 
must grow and prosper. The influence of America 
is widespread among nations, no less in the solution 
of social and political problems than in the develop- 
ment of industry and commerce. There is not a 
country on the globe which does not borrow from 
us ideas and aspirations. The spirit of American 
liberty wafts its spell across the seas and oceans, 
and prepares ground for the implanting of American 
thoughts and fashions. This influence will grow 
with the growth of the nation. Estimates have been 
made as to our population a century hence, placing 
it at 400,000,000, due allowance made in this com- 
putation for diminution in the numbers of our im- 
migrants. The center of gravity for human action 
is rapidly shifting, and in the non-distant future 
America will lead the world. The native character 
of the American people fits them to be leaders. They 
are active, aggressive, earnest. Whatever they be- 
lieve, they act out; whatever they aim for, they at- 



BROTHERHOOD. 139 

tain. They are utterly incapable of the indifference 
to living interests, and the apathy which, under the 
specious name of conservatism, mark European pop- 
ulations. The most daring elements of other lands 
have come hither to form a new people — new in en- 
ergy, new in spirit, new in action — in complete adap- 
tation to the new epoch in the world's history, 
through which we are living. We cannot but be- 
lieve that a singular mission is assigned to America, 
glorious for ourselves and beneficent to the whole 
race, that of bringing forth a new social and political 
order, based more than any other that has hereto- 
fore existed upon the common brotherhood of man, 
and more than any other securing to the multitude 
of the people social happiness and equality of rights. 
In our own are bound up the hopes of the billions* 
of the whole earth. The church triumphant in 
America, truth will travel on the wings of American 
influence, and with it encircle the universe." 

Secondly: They are directing their attention to 
the schools, knowing full well, that he who has the 
training of children, to him belongs the future — 
that is to say, the teachers have within their power 
the preparing of the children to express and enact 
their convictions in the next generation. Now, 
it is a lamentable fact that in these centers a 
large majority of the teachers are Catholics; and it 
is no small item in the shaping of civilization that 
7,000,000 children are being impressed six days in 
the week, for nine and ten months out of the year. 



140 PATRIOTISM. 

by men and women who have no love or respect for 
our school system, only so far as it affords them a 
livelihood, and an opportunity to teach the princi- 
ples of Catholicism. The whole fight against the 
public school as an institution centers in the priest- 
hood; and who are these Roman Catholic priests ? . 

Largely foreigners, with foreign sympathies; who 
never had any sympathy with popular education of 
the people. Only when Catholicism comes in contact 
w 7 ith Protestant nations, do they show any interest 
in the education of tho masses. But, having had 
an experience in this country, they have come to see 
that children taught in our public schools do 
not make good Romanists; hence this intense 
hatred of, and warfare upon, our institutions. From 
their standpoint, this gives them great anxiety; and 
the establishment of schools, to be directed by the 
church, becomes a necessity with them. 

But the separate school is found to be an expen- 
sive system, when added to the regular tax for the 
support of public schools. The priests, therefore, 
are determined, if possible, to inveigh the state into 
a payment of the expense for separate schools, or 
divide the school money. 

On this question w T e are to have a desperate fight 
in this country; and I know of no way for Protest- 
ants to be successful, unless they declare themselves 
opposed to the payment to any denominational in- 
terest of State funds. 

We object to the advocates of this Roman civili- 



CONSCIENCE. 141 

zation in America becoming the teachers of the next 
generation of Americans. We want a homeogene- 
ous people. Whatever tends to divide the people — 
to continue race distinctions, is to be deprecated. 
We cannot afford to have two or more nationalities, 
or two or more types of civilization. We want no 
French-Americans, no German-Americans, no Irish- 
Americans, no British- Americans; we want only 
Americans. 

We want no aristocracy; no peasantry. Eome 
fosters classes and caste. ''Gentlemen for the par- 
'lor, serfs for the field," was the declaration of one 
of her prominent advocates. It is the learned few; 
and the ignorant many. Its vast hierarchy is built 
on the theory of despotism. We have seen some- 
thing of it in the great cities, where the hierarchy has 
been hand in glove with the political boss dividing 
with him the plunder of the treasury; furnishing the 
votes which control elections, in return for financial 
aid and stolen opportunities to proselyte the people. 

The real, logical distinctions between the Roman 
Catholic church and the Protestant is not the ques- 
tion of papacy, nor is it in the ordinances, but in the 
direction of the individual conscience. The Roman 
Catholic church holds to a corporate conscience. 
Whatever that church determines to be right or 
wrong, the individual must respect; while in the 
Protestant church we urge every man to follow his 
own conscience, in pursuit of the best light and 
knowledge given to the individual member. The 



142 PATRIOTISM. 

greatest danger is in the attitude and power vested 
m the political trickster of to-day. 

This everlastingly catering to the vote of Catho- 
licism is ruinous to Protestant interests. Nothing 
can be more ruinous, unless it be that of indifference 
on the part of those who neither seek, nor cast, votes. 
Every man ought to feel that citizenship in a repub- 
lic is identified with great responsibilities; and if this 
country is to remain Democratic in its form of gov- 
ernment, every man must interest himself suffi- 
ciently to know what is required of him, and then 
hasten to do it. 

Thirdly: Let us look at the nature of our citizens 
to-day. Foreign elements are massing upon our 
shores with such rapidity as to provoke the ques- 
tion, and lead the best minds to inquire how we may 
utilize the rapid increase, without the transfer of 
national peculiarities; or, in other words, how we 
may Americanize the African, the Indian, Irishman, 
Jew, German, Pole, Norwegian, Englishman, and 
the Italian. The immigration of to-day is not what 
it was in the time of our fathers. 

The first settlers came to this country to find a 
home, where liberty and freedom from religious 
restraint and persecution were promised. They 
came with their prayer books and hymnals. But 
the great mass of immigrants of to-day are ignorant 
of our laws, or forms of government; when once 
upon their feet, they go about to reconstruct society, 
and re-create their European institutions. 



TRANSFER. 143 

This does not apply to all. I want to say once, 
and emphatically, that there are grand specimens of 
humanity, filled with true loyalty and conviction, 
from all shores with us to-day; and to all such we 
give a hearty welcome to all the privileges our in- 
stitutions afford. 

But the time has come when the percentage is so 
large of those who seek simply to secure our advan- 
tages for selfish purposes, that we have a right to 
demand of them certain pledges, as a law of self- 
protection; which may be summed up, perhaps, in 
one pledge: Are you ready to become Americans 
and leave Germany, Ireland, Scotland and France, 
as you left your own homes, when you established 
anew, and took to yourself a wife ? 

If so, pull up yonr patriotism, roots and all, and 
transplant it in this country ; for we want no coat 
of many colors, no crazy quilt, no patchwork, but 
one land, one flag, and one interest. 

"If this republic is to last through the coming 
ages, it must last in the affections of the entire 
American people. It must be wisely guarded by 
rules, and firmly defended by the citizens of the 
republic. Statesmanship no less is essential, but, 
my countrymen, self-reliance in the people is also 
essential. 

Why, what is all your education worth ? What 
your schools and colleges, and costly institutions of 
learning, if manhood and character are lost ? What 
is all your wealth worth, its splendor and its pomp, 



144 PATRIOTISM. 

your railroads, your bonds, your banks, your bound- 
less evidences of gigantic prosperity; what is it all 
worth, if 3^011 destroy unity, or sap the foundations 
of self-reliance among the people ? 

Why, my countrymen, you cannot purchase con- 
stitutional liberty with money; you cannot paint it 
on gilded walls of splendid palaces; you cannot en- 
grave it on the corner-stones of colleges or costly 
capitals; you cannot perpetuate it on parchment, nor 
decree it by statute. Constitutions are a sham, and 
law is a mockery, unless the people behind it have 
the manhood to defend the one and enforce the 
other. The home of liberty at last is in the heart, 
rather than in the head; and liberty's last, best and 
strongest fortress is the manhood, character and 
self-reliance of this American people. I tell you, 
these words which so charm the American ear — re- 
public, constitution, law, liberty — all will become 
but the glittering spangles of the shroud that will 
at last robe the dead body of your liberties, if your 
manhood and your character are lost. Is that true ? 
If so, statesmanship, patriotism, and common sense 
bid us inquire how we are to take care of man- 
hood. 

I propose to go to the core of this subject. How ? 
I lay this down as a proposition not to be gainsaid: 
Manhood and character must rest on self-respect. 
Without self-respect there is no character; without 
it there is no manhood. 

Well, how are you going to build up the self- 



SCHOOLLIFE. 145 

respect of the American youth ? Shall I answer ? 
By stimulating his pride in his country; by exalting 
his estimation of the deeds of his ancestry, teaching 
the American boy that in his veins flows the blood 
of heroes, that he is the descendant of the grandest 
race of liberty's defendants this world ever had in 
it, and you will get a race of men." 

Third: As Americans, we have upon our hands 
the solving of the great problem of the liquor traf- 
fic, which is carried on largely by foreigners; and is 
directly opposed to the best form of government, 
and the mother of all evil. 

This fact we must look squarely in the face, and 
ask ourselves what is to be done, and then go 
about it. 

A few suggestions as to our duty: 

First: Let us look well to the home-life of Ameri- 
cans; for what the home-life is, the nation will be. 
Every home, therefore, should be a cradle of 
liberty. 

Let us look well to our school-life, making it one 
of the conditions of enf ranschisement — an education 
in the language, principles and history of America. 
For the State will neglect its highest and most im- 
portant duty, if it sutlers any church to be responsi- 
ble for the entire control and education of any con- 
siderable portion of its citizens. The education of 
American children should be an American educa- 
tion, in strict accord with our republican forms, 
presented in one language, and made a work of the 



146 PATRIOTISM. 

State, and never left to the church, to chance or 
charity. 

The time has come for us to say something about 
who should be eligible to citizenship in this country, 
and to call a halt at the gateway of immigration, 
until they are ready to accept the religion of Amer- 
ica, and defend intelligently our public institutions; 
and this can never be done without a system of 
training, such as begets in the individual heart a 
self-respect as the basis of national liberty. 

REMARKS. 

First: Sons and daughters of America, let us re- 
member with reverence the fathers, and the sac- 
rifices they made in the establishment of the institu- 
tions that have made this country what it now is; and 
go out to kindle camp-fires in every city and village, 
on every slope, and along every river, until the mil- 
lions now within our borders shall become billions! 
Inspired with true devotion to God, and with love for 
our country, let us go forward to make war on all 
law-breaking and law-evading organizations, looking 
for success in the power of God, who giveth all 
things liberally to them that walk uprightly. 

Second: In all our warfare, let us cherish a liberal 
spirit toward all church organizations, and men of 
conviction, denouncing all political allegiance to the 
Pope, and tolerance to his dictation in civil interests; 
directing our fire on all religions and creeds that . 
strike against home, schools or freedom of worship, 



WARFARE. 147 

be they Catholic, Mormon or Pagan; unfurling and 
defending the glorious old flag, with its stars and 
stripes, as the emblem of liberty, right and unity. 
We are told that many years ago, after a hard- 
fought battle, wherein the valor and heroism of the 
soldiers were made apparent, the victorious com- 
mander presented his soldiers with a medal, bearing 
the name of the battle, and the simple motto: "I 
was there." The soldiers received and prized these 
medals far more than if they had been of the finest 
gold, and studded with priceless jewels. So, as we 
stand in the midst of the greatest battle of the age 
— a battle, not of swords, but of ideas and princi- 
ples — let us ask ourselves the questions: Shall this 
republic be Christian or infidel; shall this people be 
temperate or drunken; and shall this flag wave over 
the triumphant millions in the years to come, as the 
emblem of union ? Let us so act our part, that 
when He who reigns King of nations, shall take us 
to the everlasting habitation on high, and point to 
the battle of America, we may be able to say with 
pride, "I was there." We'll gird us for the coming 
fight; 

"And, strong in Him, whose cause is ours, 
In conflict with unholy powers, 
We grasp the weapons He hath given, 
The light, the truth, the love of heaven." 



CHAPTER XI. 



OUK PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

Patriotism is a favorite theme. It is the breath 
of poetry, the perfume of the loftiest literature, the 
charm of oratory, the fountain of love and admira- 
tion. Who can forget the epics of Homer and of 
Hector, Agamemnon, Atreus and Tydides, Lconi- 
das, Timoleon and Horatius, Tell, Winkelreid and 
Hannibal, Emmett, Kosciusko and Kossuth, Wash- 
ington, Lincoln, Logan, and innumerable others. 
Napoleon at Waterloo, the Six Hundred at Balak- 
lava, Sheridan at Winchester, have thrilled the 
hearts of Byron, Tennyson, Emerson and Reid. 
Country-love and love of God are the two pillars 
across which stretches the arch, inscribed with all 
that is beautiful and noble in thought and form and 
color. 

But patriotism must have a cause. Every effect 
must have an adequate cause. A causeless effect is 
an unthinkable, because an impossible, thing. 
Patriotism is more than indigenous. It is a product 
and a growth. The blood of a warrior ancestry, 
stretching back 500 years, surged through the soul 
of the hero of Appomattox. The conqueror of the 
(148) 



MEN. 1*9 

world was the son of a conqueror. Hannibal kissed, 
while yet a babe, the sword of Hamilcar, and at the 
altar swore eternal enmity to Rome. Constantine 
the Great grew great at the knee of his father- war- 
rior. The marvelous heroisms of ancient Greece 
and Rome sprouted and rooted at the fireside, and 
at the feet of the illustrious teachers, sages and 
philosophers. 

The founders of our republic, recognized the im- 
portance of carefully inculcating patriotic principles 
in the minds of the young, and very early estab- 
lished schools in every neighborhood. And so mar- 
velous was the result, Lord Cornwallis declared the 
educational instincts of the colonists hastened inde- 
pendence half a century. Hence, this little brochure 
on "Patriotism" would be incomplete, without a 
reference, however slight, to our public schools. 

Our public schools need no eulogy from us. The 
most eminent educators in two hemispheres have 
exhausted the vocabulary of praise. To add any- 
thing more would be superfluous and redundant. 

We venture, however, to make a few suggestions 
that appear to us to be very important: 

1. The importance of the personality of the 
teacher: It has been well said: "It is the man that 
makes the school. " Our peril is that we will come 
to the conclusion that machinery, methods, appli- 
ances, etc. , make the school. This is the era of 
appliances. We strive to do everything by ma- 
chinery. The world is full of patents, and the air is 



150 PATRIOTISM. 

laden with rumors of patents. What a deluge of 
keys, charts, atlases, apparatuses and short meth- 
ods have we had in the last few years! Are we not 
in danger of thinking too much of methods and too 
little of men ? 

Tools are, indeed, important. We would not de- 
cry or disparage them. It would be hard to get 
along without them. Nevertheless, there is some- 
thing more important still, namely, the master me- 
chanic. Better have a wooden sword in the hands 
of a master, than a Damascus blade in the grasp of 
a novice or a bungler. Better dispense with all the 
modern methods, apparatuses and appliances of the 
school-room, and have a "master" behind the desk, 
than to have all the new-fangled "helps," with a 
helpless num-skull in the master's chair. The su- 
perior carpenter is more important than the superior 
adze or saw or hammer. The expert may write a 
more graceful hand with a twig of driftwood than 
the rustic can trace with the most finished Gillett, 
Estabrooke or pen of gold. Compare the sonnets of 
Shakespeare and Milton, written with goose-quills, 
with those of modern sonneteers, written with stylo- 
graphic pens. We prefer the goose-quill sonnet. 

Marvelous is the advancement in the ordnance of 
war. Nations no longer fight with spears, javelins 
and blunderbusses. Still, men are more important 
than munitions. We may fight with machinery, 
but we depend upon men. Napoleon, without 
weapons, was mightier than a legion of men, with 



THE MAN. 151 

all the accoutrements of war. Think of Wellington 
at Waterloo, Grant at the Wilderness, and Logan 
before Atlanta, when McPherson went down. How 
many muskets would have been equal to the mus- 
ketless Sheridan among the flying mob at Win- 
chester? 

Wonderful is the advance in the science of medi- 
cine. Esculapius would be amazed, were he to drop 
down into the modern laboratory. Books of medical 
science, in many departments, are out of date by the 
time they are published, we are moving forward 
at such a break-neck speed. Still, we cannot 
dispense with the physician. Likewise in the de- 
partment of surgery. However bright and keen 
and superior the instruments may be, the surgeon is 
indispensable. 

Here is a magnificent piano. It is one of Stein- 
way's or Chickering's best. It's melodic and har- 
monic possibilities are well-nigh limitless; but still, 
it is only when some master — some Lizst or Ruben- 
stein or Von Bulon — sweeps over the banks of ivory 
that the machine becomes myriad and celestial- 
voiced. And so we might multiply illustrations, 
almost beyond enumeration. 

We are disposed to emphasize machinery, and 
relenquish our concern regarding the teacher, as a 
man. Think of the humble school of sixty and 
seventy years ago, and longer. There was very lit- 
tle machinery; there were very few appliances; ap- 
paratus, strictly speaking, there was none. Every- 



152 PATRIOTISM. 

thing hinged upon the teacher. Dark days, are you 
saying ? Wait a moment. Those were the days 
when the youthful Bryants and Longfellows and 
Emersons and Lowells and Whittiers and Holmes 
were in the humble school, under the guidance of 
the master. John Marshall, Henry Clay, Daniel 
Webster and other civic giants were then in embyro. 
Think of the groves of Aristotle, the tub of Diog- 
ones, and the street corners of Athens, where Socra- 
tes taught. Think of the men who went forth from 
their illustrious tutelage. There were giants in 
those days. But they were not machine-made; they 
were moulded and fashioned by the masters, and in 
turn became masters themselves. 

"It is the man that makes the school." Better 
have the school on the strand of the murmuring 
waters, or under the sighing boughs, without books 
or maps, or charts or appliances of any sort, with a 
man for a teacher, than to have all the appliances, 
but the man minus. 

2. What is education? It is the uplift of one 
soul by the personal contact and effort of a superior 
soul, not in a material, but in a moral and intellec- 
tual sense. And no appliance or method can take 
the place of the superior soul. How infinitesimal ap- 
pear all educational machinery when Arnold, of 
Rugby, arises before us. To rub against such a 
man for an hour was worth all the machine work of 
a whole year. What memories have the students of 
Princeton of — what ? Methods ? Appliances ? 



PUKE TEACHEKS. 153 

Apparatuses? No! Of Dr. McCosh, the man. 
President Garfield told us his supreme memory was 
of Mark Hopkins, his teacher at Williams College. 
What an impress Milton made upon those who sat 
at his feet; and the immortal Shakespeare, who is 
said to have taught, at one time, a humble country 
school! 

Our supreme need in the schools of to-day is men 
not machinery, not methods, not appliances. We 
need men of character, of convictions, of steadfast- 
ness of purpose. 

First, we need pure men. One coarse or vulgar, 
slip-shod utterance from the teacher might corrupt a 
dozen budding minds. One act of impurity might 
poison a score of miniature life-fountains. There is 
as great a demand for pure teachers as there is for 
pure preachers. Indeed, the demand is greater for 
pure teachers; for the preacher has the children but 
one hour per week, while the teacher has them thirty 
hours. We need pure teachers. 

Second, we need enthusiastic teachers. We 
should have the same enthusiasm in the school-room 
there is on the Board of Trade. The teacher should 
be as great a zealot, educationally, as the consecrated 
missionary is religiously, or the Jesuit is politically 
and ecclesiastically. 

Third, we need godly teachers. I say nothing of 
creed or dogma. I emphasize the need of godly 
teachers, in antithesis to the teacher ungodly. I 
think of Ingersoll teaching and fashioning the minds 



154 PATRIOTISM. 

of the children. Yet Ingersoll was once a school 
teacher. We do not want our children Ingersoll- 
ized, but Christianized. And only a Christian 
teacher can christianize. A non-committal teacher 
will not do. A teacher who simply does not antago- 
nize the religion of Christ is not good enough. A 
positive faith, and a corresponding character are the 
sine qua nous. 

Fourth, we need brainy teachers. Unfortunately, 
we have not held out sufficient inducements, to in- 
duce men of brains, in large numbers, to devote 
their lives to the cause of education. Men and wo- 
men, as a rule, teach, not as an end, but as a means; 
they use the teacher's profession as a stepping-stone 
to something financially and socially and politically 
higher. When an individual consecrates himself for 
life to teaching, we look upon him as something as 
a missionary — as a martyr, indeed. The legal and 
medical professions are usually the goals of the 
teachers' ambitions. The teachers are not to blame. 
Their constituents are at fault. Magnify the teach- 
er's office; make it financially desirable; give it a sort 
of social transfiguration, and the Hopkins' and Mc- 
Coshes will be multiplied. Water seeks its level; 
so do brains. Water will find its level; so will 
brains. Magnify the teacher's office, and lay con- 
tribution upon the best brains. 

Fifth, we weed patriotic teachers. It is no more 
important for the President of the United States to 
be inducted into office with vows of fidelity to the 



BEGINNINGS. 155 

Constitution, than for the teacher in the humblest 
backwoods' district school. A flag should float from 
every school-house, and the open Constitution should 
be spread upon every teacher's desk. As the twig 
is bent against a government, so the tree is inclined. 
The rampant rebellionism of the South was instilled 
into the minds of the children by disloyal teachers. 
With a loyal teacher, true to the Constitution, in 
every school-house south of the Mason and Dixon 
line, a quarter of a century hence, the South would 
be thoroughly northernized and unionized. Why 
should it not be so ? This is a matter of supreme 
concern to our country, and to every loyal, law- 
abiding citizen. 



Now's the day, and now's the hour. 

— Burns. 

O, let the soul her slumber break. 
Let thought be quickened and awake! 

— Longfellow. 

Who of us can tell 
What he had been had Cadmus never taught 
The art that fixes into form the thought — 
Had Plato never spoken from his cell? 

— Bulwer. 

Ye make the past our heritage and home. 

— Bulwer 

Unless above himself he can 

Erect himself, how poor a thing i3 man. 



-Daniel. 



Murmuring the names of might men, 
They bid our streams roll on; 

And lend high thoughts to every glen 
Where valiant deeds were done. 



— Eemans. 



(xix.) 



EDUCATION 



CHAPTER XII. 



EDUCATION. 

"The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, 
playing in the streets thereof." — Zach. viii. 5. 

With one stroke of the pencil, the prophet puts 
on canvas the condition of this republic, when its 
cities and centers shall have been gospelized; and 
the church of God, under the direction of its leader, 
thrown into close relations to the masses now gaui- 
ered on these shores, creative of responsibilities, 
such as must employ all her time and ability in the 
years to come, as never before. 

It was a great thing to be identified with the ori- 
gin of this republic, and to have to do with the di- 
recting of the convictions of its early settlers; but 
the material on which the fathers wrought, and 
that which confronts us, widely differs. 

To-day the cities have become the great centers of 
power; and into them are gathered the great per- 
centage of illiteracy and lawlessness. Before we 
are able to see our streets filled with boys and girls, 
playing, without danger to themselves, or endan- 
gering the interests of others, much of earnest, con- 
stant, sanctified effort awaits us. 

The importance of this work is apparent to every 
(156) 



CHILDREN. 157 

statesman; for in no form of government does en- 
franchisement mean so much as in a republic. Here, 
every man is king, and ought to be intelligent in 
the use of power thus bestowed upon him; for there 
is no safety without wide-spread intelligence. But 
to-day, of the ten million voters in the United States, 
one in five are unable to write their name, or to read 
it, when written. In each State, save five, there 
were illiterate voters enough to have reversed the 
result of the last presidential election in any one of 
those States. 

We must look after the education of the young. 
We have to-day eighteen million children and youth 
of school ages; ten and a-half million are enrolled, 
but the average attendance is only six millions. 
Therefore, five-twelfths are growing up in ignorance 
of the English alphabet; and, according to the pres- 
ent tendency, in ten years from to-day there will be 
more children out of the schools than in them. 

Let us be a little more specific: In thirty-four 
cities in this country we find from fifty to eighty per 
cent of the children out of the schools, and not even 
enrolled. In eighty-six cities, one-third of the en- 
rolled are absent — never enter the school-room at all. 

New York, the London of this nation, has one 
hundred and fourteen thousand children not en- 
rolled in the schools. Out of three hundred and 
eighty-five thousand enrolled, only one hundred 
and thirty-two thousand are found in schools. 

Three hundred and sixty-seven thousand children 



158 PATRIOTISM. 

in that city are growing up in dense ignorance. 
These facts are startling; for the cities are the great 
centers of power. As the city goes, so goes the 
country. 

Boston gives all New England a reading, reason- 
ing air. Philadelphia renders it easy to keep order 
throughout all the county of Philadelphia; while 
Chicago inspires the great Northwest with enter- 
prise and thrift. 

We hear much about the works of the old mas- 
ters. Better spend more time studying and plan- 
ning to correct the spirits of modern "masters," or 
political directors, in the centers of our own 
country. 

As one of the results of the late war, a problem 
was presented to us by the passing of millions of 
people in illiteracy, from slavery to freedom, and 
on to citizenship, making it absolutely necessary for 
somebody to educate, direct and train this body of 
men for the duties of citizenship. When the church 
looked upon this scene, it heard the voice of God, 
saying: "Go ye, teach this people, and baptize 
them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost,*' as a part of all nations. 

For twenty years the missionary society has sup- 
ported from fifty to one hundred and fifty pastors in 
each State in the South. During the same time the 
Church Extension Society has helped to build four 
thousand church edifices, on what was once slave 
territory. 



freedman's aid. 150 

In 1867 Freedman's Aid Societies were organ- 
ized, and began establishing schools and churches 
all over that land. This work should commend 
itself to our attention, from the fact that the balance 
of illiteracy is in the Southern States. There are in 
the Southern States about 12,000,000 whites, and 
about 8,000,000 negroes. 

In these States, with one third of the nation's 
population, are found nearly three-fourths of the 
nation's illiterates. Study the map. 

Thirty per cent, of the white minors, from 10 to 
21, and 70 per cent, of the negroes of same ages, are 
illiterates in the South. 

The illiterate voters in the South, where 153 of the 
electoral votes are cast, number 1,354,974:. 

Here is a startling record as to the voting popula- 
tion in the South. 

To me this gives great importance to our educa- 
tional work in that land. I confess to much fear, 
as I study the late maps, reports and tables. 

These dark mountains, if once set on fire by some 
enthusiast, would be worse than so many Charlestons 
in the hand of an earthquake. 

Here is congregated a constituency that claim to 
fill 24 senatorial seats, and to cast 153 electoral 
votes at every presidential election. Here, with a 
little more than one-third of the population of the 
land, is three-fourths of its illiteracy. 

What is to be done with them ? Some of our 
speakers say the black population will soon run out. 



160 PATKIOTISM. 

In this they make a great mistake. The black man 
is in the South to stay. He is southern by birth, 
constitution and habit; thoroughly adapted to the 
climate and industries of the South. 

As for the proposition discussed in the political 
circles, they are not fading out as fast as when 
slaves; and they will become national and intensely 
negro in pride, more and more, as they rise in the 
scale of intelligence; and if any man thinks the race 
is to die out, he will awake some morning to the 
fact of American shame. ' We are the weaklings in 
this. The 4,000,000 are now nearly 8,000,000. 

They must be elevated and Americanized where 
they are, for they are here to stay and grow. The 
poverty, superstition a:icl indolence of the black man 
is to disappear; but the black man is to remain 
purely African in his instincts. 

Again, the sad condition of his white neighbor is 
to impro^&e, and he will find his place. Left at the 
close of the war, a disheartened and impoverished 
people, with plantations deserted, we ought not to 
expect too much of them in the first generation; lit- 
tle more than an adjustment of talent and rule. 
But many are saying: "We have done; we have 
given." Yes; and if in a hundred years, with in- 
creasing gifts, we correct the two hundred years of 
depression and waste resulting from the traffic of 
slavery, it will be a compliment to Christian educa- 
tion, and a marvel to thoughtful minds. 

Some seem to think that the trend of northern 



CAPITAL. 161 

enterprise is to convert the South. I rejoice in the 
going of our northern men with capital and enter- 
prise into that sunny land; but only so far as this 
is Christianized will it help to elevate the ignorant. 

All the slavery is not confined to the South, nor 
are all the slaves black men. We have a great num- 
ber of northern men who, having inherited wealth 
and indolence, are looking for men whom the}' may 
employ at lowest wages and hold in greatest servi- 
tude. 

The moving of northern capital into the South is 
a means to be employed and sanctified by the church, 
to the uplifting of the poor and oppressed; and the 
best benevolent work done, is that which aids the 
people to help themselves. This is what this north- 
ern enterprise ought, and, rightly directed, will do, 
in view of the hopefulness now inspiring the South 
as a whole, from the increasing confidence in free 
labor, because more cotton, sugar and rice are raised 
than in the days of slavery. 

In view of the ever-increasing effort on the part 
of the poor, black and white, to help themselves, 
Avhich is clearly illustrated by the gifts of the people 
for universities, homes and schools, we ought not to 
diminish our efforts. 

The most interesting feature, and hopeful on all 
occasions, is the cash offerings brought by the col- 
ored people. At New Orleans, when the corner- 
stone of a university was laid in 188S, the roll was 
called for churches in Louisiana, and fully one half 



162 PATRIOTISM. 

responded, either through their pastors or presiding 
elder, until nearly $1,000 cash was laid on the table; 
and a further subscription made of §1,000 by the 
same people, to be paid in the early fall. One could 
but wish the whole church could have witnessed 
that scene. 

One good old sister counted out ten dollars; 
and, as dollar after dollar fell into his hands, Dr. 
Hartzell said: "Sister, is this not too much for you 
to give ? " Her reply was: "Nothing is too much, 
when 1 promise God to give it to Him." 

Another aged colored woman put down $10; and 
one who supports herself by hard work laid down 
$25. 

Several of the poorest churches, under the lead of 
heroic young men brought, or sent, §20. One 
brother sent §10 from Pineville, La., on Red river. 
Near by his church is a national cemetery, where 
thousands of boys in blue lie buried. 

Another brother sent §15 from a very weak 
charge. He wrote: "Brother Hartzell, you will 
know how I have to get along, when I tell you my- 
self and family have to live sometimes on a dollar a 
week, and sometimes on 75 cents. This is a hard 
place, dear brother. The only way the minister 
has been getting along here is by giving suppers, 
and they are run into the ground. You must pray 
for me." Such heroism in self-help deserves, and 
will have, the blessing of God, and the commenda- 
tion of men. 



CLAIMS. 163 

"There is a poor, blind Samson in the land, 
Shorn of his strength, once bound in bands of steel, 
"Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, 
And shake the pillars of this common weal, 
Till the vast temple of liberties 
A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies," 

This is the work of the hour, and of our churches, 
to save the millions clothed with all the attributes 
of citizenship, and yet who grope in darkness and 
superstition. 

We owe it to the land we love, the institutions en- 
dangered, the God we love, and the faith we inherit. 

No other people of equal numbers have such claims 
upon us. No element in all the land threatened to 
trouble us more. As I have already intimated, we 
are responsible for the education of this people. 

Organizations in the southern land may desire to 
do many things for this people; but such have been 
their relations to the slave in former clays, it makes 
it impossible for them to inspire confidence to any 
great extent during the life of those who partici- 
pated in the late war. Then again, they have not 
the constituency to draw from. The church is na- 
tional, world-wide, and is on the ground, holding 
the confidence of the people, and supported by the 
whole country. Every church has members in the 
midst of this people, as a nucleus through which to 
act. 

The most positive reinforcement this part of the 
work needs, is a large addition of educated teachers 
and preachers. In this part of the work alone, the 



164: PATRIOTISM. 

opportunity for usefulness is unsurpassed. Here 
are hundreds of spirited young men, many of them 
called to preach, who want an education. They are 
mostly poor, but represent a most hopeful element 
of the great middle class of the South, from which 
chiefly the new South of the future must come. 
Their appeals for help are piteous. 

More than any one organization is the Methodist 
Episcopal church responsible for the salvation of 
the negro population in America. It had most to 
do with giving them their freedom; and the honor 
of that work is followed by the largest share in the 
responsibility for their salvation. 

What a multitude they have come to be! In all 
the nation there are about 8,000,000; that is two out 
of every fifteen of the whole population. Twelve- 
thirteenths of these multitudes are in the South. 
They are increasing in a greater ratio, by births 
alone, than are the whites of America by births and 
immigration. During the past ten years the negroes 
increased by birth thirty-five per cent, and the 
whites by birth and immigration thirty per cent. 
With numbers have come improved character, in- 
creased property, home proprieties, and all the ele- 
ments of a rapidly rising people. 

God has thus, in a manner not to be disputed, 
swept away all false theories, framed by the apolo- 
gists for slavery, or race prejudices, thus proclaim- 
ing again that freedom is the right and best condi- 
tion of man. 



CAPTUKING. 165 

May this nation hasten to show this fully to all 
its sons and daughters, until race caste, which has 
cursed the altars of nearly every church in the na- 
tion, and been the fly in the ointment of so many 
attempts at national unity, shall be wholly put away. 
For a hundred years this nation has tried to count 
the negro out of its civilization, only as he might be 
a hewer of wood and drawer of water; but the Lord 
Almighty has now counted him in, and made him pow- 
erful in numbers, and tremendous for good or evil. 

He has a million votes, and may elect our next 
President. How important that these people should 
have Christian education! 

Rome hastens to proselyte them, for they are 
Protestants by instinct. The weaknesses of body 
and mind, resulting from two 'and a-half centuries 
of slavery, largely cling to the masses. Oh, how 
God calls the Christian church of America to save 
them! How He piles up the arguments: gratitude, 
for out of their toil we have grown rich; self-inter- 
est, for their redemption is our own; Christian 
charity, for they are in want and we are rich; patri- 
otism, for the Christian civilization of this nation, 
in its conflict with Rome, rum and communism, may 
very soon need every one of their votes — it certainly 
will be safer with them; philanthropy, for they who 
are to move our schools and churches are our broth- 
ers; the judgment, for, "Inasmuch as ye did it not 
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it 
not unto me," is out against us. 



166 PATRIOTISM. 

How God especially calls the church to save these 
people. They believe in her. After the war they 
came to her with tears of rejoicing, as the lost child 
finding its mother, hastens to weep in her arms. 
They appreciate what has been done for them. 
Thousands of these sons and daughters of Ham are 
in the churches. Through these is an open door for 
the largest possible efforts of the church to reach the 
millions. 

Our schools have powerfully impressed themselves 
upon the thoughtful negro mind of the nation, and 
toward them multitudes of parents are looking, and 
praying that in them their boys and girls may 
be educated. The peerless organization of the 
church enables the best brain and heart and benevo- 
lence of the nation to be utilized with the least pos- 
sible waste, and at the same time, by its specific su- 
pervision of every church, district, conference and 
school, by competent men, is insured the most rapid 
discipline of mind and morals. 

The demand of the hour, in this work, is more 
preachers and teachers. Pulpits and schools, 
manned by colored men, must at once be better 
manned, or the work will suffer great loss. Never 
could it be more truly said: "The King's business 
requires haste." Every year these people are not 
brought under the direct and saving power of the 
church, the chances are they drift away permanently 
from God, or go into the haunts of sin. 

The New York Tribune says: u The South will 



THE SOUTH, 167 

prosper when it cuts itself away from the past, and 
moves up abreast of the present. What is keeping 
her back, is not northern intolerance or hatred, for 
there is no such thing, but her own blind obstinacy 
in clinging to issues which are dead, and to ideas 
that have been her curse. Her future is in the 
hands of her young men. We believe they can be 
trusted with it, and that, sooner or later, they will 
bring the intelligence of the South into close union 
with the intelligence of the North." 

Until then, this work is ours. A few years ago 
a sea captain was returning from a foreign port, and 
making his way up the Penobscot river, in the dis- 
tance he saw two children in a boat, dancing on the 
waves; as he neared them, he took his glass and, 
fixing his eyes on them, he shouted: "About ship; 
man the boats; these are my children." 

Gentlemen, brethren, arise, man the schools and 
pulpits; these are our people. 



OUR HERITAGE — GREAT MEN 



O, what men dare do. 

— Shakespere. 

A rarer spirit never 
Did steer humanity. 

— Shakespere. 

His life was gentle; and the elements 

So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world, "This was a man.' 

—Shakespere. 

A combination, and a form; indeed, 
Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
To give the world assurance of a man. 

— Shakespere. 

Man is one world, and hath 
Another to attend him. 

— Herbert. 

Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. 

—Lowell, 

Yes, Honor decks the turf that wraps their clay. 

— Tennyson. 



(xx.) 



CHAPTER XIII. 



OUR HERITAGE — I. OUR GREAT MEN. 

All history is but a biographical medley; it is but 
a recital of what men thought, said, did and tried to 
do. With equal truth, it may be said that all biog- 
raphy is but a historical medley. In the one, history 
revolves about biography; in the other, biography 
revolves about history. The story is one and the 
same, but the one you read from right to left, the 
other from left to right. In biography, history is 
fragmentary; in history, biography is broken and 
disconnected. 

Biography is the soul of history; it is to history 
what the heart is to the human organism, breath to 
the lungs, and blood to the veins and arteries. It 
is the blood of history. Rupture the jugular vein, 
and history speedily dies. Biography is the oxygen 
of the historic atmosphere. Let it degenerate, and 
the historical atmosphere becomes malarious and 
pestilential. It is the iris of the historic eye. 
Through this iris the beams of light pour, and are 
formed upon the retina of the thought of the nations 
and the ages. Destroy the biographical iris, and 
historic blindness inevitably ensues. The oasis of 
(168) 



BIOGRAPHY. 169 

history — the verdure and the towering palm upon 
the wide-spread desert — spring out of the rich soil 
of biography. 

The hiatuses of history, the long series of vowel- 
less declamation and pointless narrative are to be ac- 
counted for by the poverty of biographical material. 
Rob Homer of his heroes, and what would beqome 
of his masterpiece ? Take the Platos and Aristoties, 
the Socrates and Alexanders, the Ciceros and Demos- 
thenes, the Csesars and Brutus, and their co-adj li- 
ters, out of the story, and what would we care for 
the history of ancient Greece and Rome ? 

What would Macaulay's England be without his 
innumerable biographical touches ? Long after we 
have forgotten the history he wrote, we will retain 
the memories, fresh and June-like — the pictures he 
has given us of Charles II. , James II., Jeffrey, 
Somers, the Duke of Monmouth, Bishop of Burnett, 
William Penn, William and Mary, and Cromwell; 
the heroes of the battle of La Hogue, the Earl of 
Dorset, Lords Rochester and Halifax, the faithful 
Bentinck, Queen Anne, the Grande Monarque, and 
others. Great and good men preserve the nation's 
glory. 

Why is not Greece to-day mistress of the world, 
as once she was ? There is the same soil, the same 
bending skies, the same murmuring seas, and senti- 
nel islands, the same atmosphere. Why is not 
Rome what she was ? The seven hills remain, the 
affluent earth, the melting firmament, the balmy at- 



170 PATRIOTISM. 

mosphere and the yellow Tiber. Why the decay of 
Egypt ? The soil is just as alluvial now as then, the 
territory as vast, and the Nile as majestic. France 
has not changed geographically, topographically or 
meteorlogically. Why this flight of power from 
Persia to Greece, from Greece to Kome, from Home 
to France, from France to Britain, and from Britain 
to America ? It is not enough to say, with Bishop 
Berkely: 

"Westward the course of empire takes its way." 

We are slow to learn that men, not territory, con- 
stitute the greatness of a nation; and that, among 
men, character, not numbers, constitutes strength. 
We are living in an age of materialism. This is an 
era of statistics. Greatness is proved by arithmetic. 
Which is the greatest nation ? The modern cate- 
chism answers: "The biggest." Who is the great- 
est man? "The richest." What is the source of 
power ? ' 'Numbers. " 

What folly! Did not Alexander take Macedon, 
smaller than West Virginia, and conquer the world ? 
Were not Shakespeare, Milton and Dante, Homer, 
Virgil and Sophocles but one remove from the pub- 
lic almshouse, kept out, in a large measure, by pri- 
vate and often secret philanthropy ? And were not 
Samson and David, each single-handed, able to rout 
whole nations? Little France, but as large as 
Maryland and California, conquers China, the largest 
nation on earth. Grant, the well-nigh penniless 
tanner, scotches the most reckless, venomous and 



MEN. 171 

deadly serpent of the ages. Lincoln, with one sweep 
of a goose-quill, broke the manacles from the millions- 
Let us, then, revise our catechism This is an era 
of revision. The Bible has been revised; the West- 
minster catechism is flinching and cringing under 
the merciless thrusts of flashing theological scalpel 
and lancet; why not go a step further? Which is 
the greatest nation ? The one possessing the great- 
est number of noble and great men. Who is the 
greatest man 1 The one loftiest in the moral and 
intellectual zone. What is the source of power ?■ A 
disciplined, sanctified and consecrated individuality. 
America — the United States — has occasion for 
profound gratitude. Our heritage is rich beyond 
measure. Where will you find, under one flag, so 
many truly great men ? Where so many whose 
native air sweeps down from the summits of moral 
and intellectual Matterhorns ? Where more unique, 
compact, full-orbed, yet disciplined, sanctified and 
consecrated individualities than in ' 'the land of the 
free and the home of the brave" ? 

Let the magnificent procession pass in grand re- 
view, while the nations of the earth uncover! Well 
may the earth tremble and reverberate with loudest 
acclamations; and heaven even send down her choi- 
cest congratulation. Call the roll, and, as the names 
are called, let the heroes step forward, that we may 
scan their record and rejoice in tbeir greatness. 
Listen! 

Samuel Adams! Here. Yes, he is here — for- 



172 PATRIOTISM. 

ever here. He wore no badges of honor, no insig- 
nia of rank; held no high office, nor did he seek the 
applause of men. He is the theme of no special 
epic, he towers not in sculptured bronze; no master 
limner has given immortality to form and feature. 
And yet Samuel Adams was so tall, he could be seen 
across the Atlantic, and so mighty that Britain's 
haughty king trembled whenever he chose to speak. 
He was the greatest of the world's agitators, and, 
had he been as ambitious as Brutus, and as thor- 
oughly base as the Tarquins, he would have been 
king of the western world, if not a second Alexan- 
der. He was the man of the town meeting, that 
Puritan anti-type and prophecy of the republic, soon 
to be. How he wielded those gatherings! Had he 
been a barrister, in Choate's and Webster's day, 
their triumphs would have been few and lonesome. 
He was a politician — a professional politician, if you 
please. He could manipulate men with Jackson 
and VanBuren, our greatest political sleight-of-hand 
jugglers. 

He was a statesman. By instinct, he was Csesaric. 
He had the prophetic eye, without which statecraft 
degenerates into child's play. He was master of the 
logical method. Given the cause, he instantly 
would declare what the effect must be. He had a 
supreme faith in the triumph, sooner or later, of the 
right. Here he was a passionate Puritan. He 
would have staked his very existence- that what 
ought to be, would be, and that right early. 



PATRIOT. 173 

He was a good man. Morally, he was a tower 
of strength. The radiancy of his righteousness illu- 
minated the most distant colonies, and gleamed 
even beyond the confines of polite civilization. He 
was a flaming patriot. He would rather die than 
be enslaved, or see his country enslaved. 

Ah! how he dared the red-coats to do their worst. 
But they would no more have touched him than 
Israel would have touched the ark, after Uzzah's 
tragic fate. 

Horatius, Leonidas and Demosthenes were his 
most congenial spirits; and he is worthy of their 
confidence and companionship. 

He was the father of the Revolution. He focused 
the discontent of the colonists, and drew the fire of 
George III. He twisted the lion's tail until he 
roared, and the New World, foresters and villagers, 
flew to their bludgeons. He cultivated the apple of 
discord and discontent, until there were not enough 
Britons to keep it longer on the English twig, and 
let loose it must. 

He was the greatest of all the pre-revolution 
heroes. How rich our heritage in blunt, heroic, un- 
blemished, unflinching, patriotic Samuel Adams! 

James Otis! Here. Yes, James Otis is here, too, 
to stay. Wonderful man. He was a god of elo- 
quence, in that golden period when oratory set na- 
tions and races on fire. He was erudite without be- 
ing pedantic, finished without being finical, brave 
without rashness. 



174 PATRIOTISM. 

He was the Patrick Henry of the north. So mightily 
did he arraign his majesty's government in his great 
speech of 1761, when he pleaded for the colonies 
and their severance from the British crown; so over- 
whelming was his argument, so rich his allusions, 
and so learned his entire speech, that conviction 
filled the minds of all who heard him, and John 
Adams, who was present, declared that independence 
was then and there born. 

He was the idol of the masses. The common 
people heard him gladly. He swayed the multi- 
tudes at will, and every oscillation was toward lib- 
erty. 

Nor was he less eloqoent with the pen. The com 
mon people read him gladly. His pamphlet, in 
1764, on "The Eights of the Colonies Vindicated," 
wrought mightily for independence. But he was 
too brilliant a star to shine — to be permitted long. 
An emissary of the crown dogged his footsteps to a 
coffee-house, and there subjected our champion of 
liberty to brutal treatment, inflicting frightful 
wounds, especially on his head. Reason reeled, 
and a few years later he literally went up to his re- 
ward in a chariot of fire. He w T as swept away by a 
flash of lightning. He had prayed that he might 
thus go, and heaven granted the petition. The 
memory of James Otis is a precious legacy to us. 

Patrick Henry! The world has had but one Pat- 
rick Henry. He was without ancestry or posterity, 
a phenomenon that could not be accounted for. He 



PATRICK HENRY. 175 

blazed forth when no political astronomer was look- 
ing for him. He came without observation. No 
prophet predicted his advent. His own neighbors 
exclaimed: "Whence hath this backwoods Virginian 
these words and this wisdom ? " In a single speech 
he leaped from obscurity to fame. The flames of 
his eloquence set not only the colonies, but the 
whole world, on fire. 

He was also a great lawyer. With keen and in- 
cisive acumen, he exposed the fallacies of his maj- 
esty's demands and positions, and gave the colonists 
not only a reason for the hope that was in them, 
but high and unquenchable resolutions to achieve 
independence, and arguments with which to gain 
converts among the wavering, and respect among 
the unyielding tories. 

He was also a soldier. But for his marvelous 
oratoric powers, and ability as a lawyer and a states- 
man, he might have been one of the most conspicu- 
ous of the revolutionary generals. 

He was a great executive, being Virginia's first 
governor, and thrice elected. He was a prophet. 
Think of this speech on the Constitution, before it 
was adopted, June 21, 1788: "Among ten 
thousand implied powers which they may as- 
sume, they may, if engaged in war, liber- 
ate every one of your slaves, if they please. 
And this must and will be done by men, a majority 
of whom have not a common interest with you. . 

. . Another thiDg will contribute to bring this 



176 PATRIOTISM. 

event about. Slavery is detested. We feel its 
fatal defects; we deplore it with all the pity of hu- 
manity. Let all these considerations, at some future 
period, press with full force on the minds of Con- 
gress. Let that urbanity, which I trust will distin- 
guish America, and the necessity of national defence 
— let all these things operate on their minds; they 
will search that paper, and see if they have power of 
manumission. And have they not, sir ? Have they 
not power to provide for the general defence and 
welfare? May they not think that these call for the 
abolition of slavery ? May they not pronounce all 
slaves free ? And will they not be warranted by 
that power? This is no ambiguous implication or 
illogical deduction. The paper speaks to the point. 
They have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, 
and will clearly and certainly exercise it." 

Mark you, this is not an orator of this century, 
but of the last. What wonder the colonists tri- 
umphed, when their statesmen were prophets, and 
saw the end from the beginning. 

But Henry was a patriot. He loved the whole 
country. His native State could not fill his capacious 
soul. He is narrow, indeed, who can find all that he 
cares for within the confines of his native State. 
Not so with Patrick Henry. He made the halls of 
the first Continental Congress ring with the passion- 
ate exclamation: "I am not a Virginian, but an 
American. " 

Alexander Hamilton. Great is our debt of grati- 



HAMILTON. 177 

tucle to this weird and wonderful man. Heaven 
dealt generously with us when she sent him hither 
from the Island of Nevis. He was precocious al- 
most beyond precedent. At twenty years of age he 
had so distinguished himself as a tactician, fighter 
and commander, that Washington made him chief- 
of-staff. Before he was twenty-one, he became the 
foremost thinker on that most obtuse subject, finance. 
It is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say he was the 
greatest financier, for his age, that ever lived. Our 
whole fiscal policy still bears the impress of his mas- 
terly moulding. 

When only thirty-two, he was our first Secretary 
of the Treasury, and organized that branch of the 
government. 

But he was most marvelous of all as a statesman. 
It is universally conceded that he was the most bril- 
liant statesman our nation has yet produced. In- 
deed, one biographer goes so far as to declare that 
4 ; our system of government is his best and noblest 
monument. " 

Benjamin Franklin. Here was a man whom even 
his enemies venerated. He was as patriotic as 
Washington, as diplomatic as John Quincy Adams, 
as learned as the elder Adams, as pithy and epigram- 
matic as the Greek satirists, as great a statesman 
and financier as Alexander Hamilton, as great a 
moralist as Plato, Paley, or Aurelius and almost as 
myriad-minded as Shakespeare. 

Think of his contributions to science, and his 



178 PATRIOTISM. 

wonderful fund of wise and witty sayings that has 
enriched our thought and our language. 

He was a printer, his majesty's postmaster-general 
for the colonies, a civic officer. "He was at once 
philosopher, statesman, diplomatist, scientific discov- 
erer, inventor, philanthropist, moralist, and wit;" 
while as a master of English prose, he is, perhaps, 
without a superior in the world. "He is, in many 
respects, the greatest of Americans, and one of the 
greatest men whose names are recorded in history. " 

As an illustration of his wit and originality, we 
give his epitaph, written by himself: "The body of 
Benjamin Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old 
book, its contents torn out, and stripped of its letter- 
ing and gilding, lies here, food for worms. But the 
work shall not be lost; for it will, as he believes, 
appear once more, in a new and more elegant edition, 
revised and corrected by the Author." 

George Washington, the father of our country, 
concerning whom Fox, in the British parliament, 
exclaimed: "Illustrious man! Deriving less honor 
from the splendor of his situation than from the 
dignity of his mind; before whom all borrowed great- 
ness sinks into insignificance, and all the princes and 
potentates of Europe become little and con- 
temptible." Of whom the golden-tongued Irish 
orator, Phillips, said: "Caesar was merciful; Scipio 
was continent; Hannibal was patient — but it was 
reserved for Washington to blend all these virtues in 
one, and, like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian 



WASHINGTON. 179 

artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty, 
the pride of every model, and the perfection of every 
master. . . . His fame is eternity, and his resi- 
dence is creation." Whom Byron declared to be: 

"The first, the last, the best; 
The Cincmnatus of the west." 

Of whom an eminent living English historian 
says: "He is well-nigh without a fellow;" and Lord 
Brougham declared: "It will be the duty of the his- 
torian and sage in all ages, to let no occasion pass 
of commemorating this illustrious man; and, until 
time shall be no more, will a test of the progress 
which our race has made in wisdom and virtue, be 
derived from the veneration paid to the immortal 
name of Washington." 

We need not dwell upon his private virtues, his 
generalship, and his civic greatness. They are 
themes familiar to even the fledgling in the nursery. 

When he died, not only did his own country sob 
herself asleep upon the bosom of her great sorrow, 
but nations beyond the sea took up the lamentation, 
and mingled their tears with ours. Napoleon the 
Great announced his death to the army of France, 
and ordered all the standards and flags throughout 
the country to be bound with crape for ten days, 
during which a funeral oration was delivered, in the 
presence of a brilliant assemblage, including Bona- 
parte, in the Hotel des Invalides. 

But, more wonderful still, Jared Sparks tells us 
* that the British fleet, with sixty ships of the line, 



180 PATRIOTISM. 

under the command of Lord Bridgeport, lying off 
Torbay, England, lowered their flags to half-mast, 
on hearing the intelligence of Washington's death. 

But once more: We must not omit the name of 
Abraham Lincoln. We do not purpose to recite 
even the principal events in this most unique life 
and character in all history. 

His biography is written in blood and tears; un- 
counted millions arise and call him blessed; a re- 
deemed and re-united republic is his monument. 
History embalms the memory of Richard the Lion- 
hearted; here, too, our martyr finds royal sepulture, 
as Lincoln the tender-hearted. 

He was brave. While assassins swarmed in 
Washington, he went everywhere, without guard or 
arms. 

He was magnanimous. He harbored no grudge, 
nursed no grievance: was quick to forgive; and was 
anxious for reconciliation. Hear him appealing to 
the South: "We are not enemies, but friends. 
Though passion may have strained, it must not 
break, the bond of our affection. The mystic chord 
of memory, stretching from every patriot grave to 
every heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad 
land, will yet swell with the chorus of the Union, 
when touched again, as it surely will be, by the bet- 
ter angels of our nature." 

He was compassionate. With what joy he brought 
liberty to the enslaved. He was forgiving. In this 
respect he was strikingly suggestive of the Saviour. 



GREAT MEN. 181 

How unlike his immediate successor in office! He 
was great. Time will but augment the greatness of 
his name and fame. Perhaps a greater man never , 
ruled in this or any other nation. He was good, and 
pure, and incorruptible. He was a patriot; he loved 
his country; he poured out his soul unto death for 
it. He was human, and thus touched the chord that 
makes the world akin. 

''Wherever the bright sun of 'heaven shall shine, 
His honor and the greatness of his name 
Shall be, and make new nations; he shall flourish, 
And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches 
To all the plains about him— our children's children 
Shall see this, and shall bless him." 
For he — 

"Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking off; 
And pity, like a naked, new-born babe, 
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed 
Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 
That tears shall drown the wind." 

But the time would fail me to catalogue, even, 
the biographical heritage that is ours. What mighty 
names arise before us ! What processions of presidents 
statesmen, military chieftains, heroic soldiers, diplo- 
matists, scholars, scientists and publicists sweep by. 
In our next chapter we will continue the exposition 
of our unparalleled heritage, dwelling upon our con- 
stitution, and the institutions which have sprung up, 
and been fostered, under its benign influence. 



States, as great engines, move slowly. 

— Lord Bacon. 

Law represents the efforts of men to organize society. 

— Beecher 

Let us then stand by the Constitution as it is, and by our 
country as it is— one, united, and entire; let it be a truth 
engraven on our hearts; let it be borne on the flag 
under which we rally in every exigency, that we have 
one country, one constitution, one destiny. 

— Webster 

To a native of free and happy governments, her constitution 
and institutions are always dear. 

— Gray. 

I mean to stand upon the Constitution. * * * No man 
can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon if 
he suffer or if he fall in defense of the liberties and 
constitution of his country. 

— Webster. 

The glorious Union shall not perish! Precious legacy of our 
fathers, it shall go down honored and cherished to our 
children. — Everett. 



(xxi.) 



OUR HERITAGE, CONSTITUTIONS 
AND INSTITUTIONS 



CHAPTER XIV. 



OUR HERITAGE. — II. CONSTITUTION AND INSTITUTIONS. 

John Fiske, in his remarkable book, entitled "The 
Critical Period," with much learning and wide read- 
ing, proves that our Constitution is by no means a 
mere counterpart of the English Constitution. A 
distinguished English writer has recently said : ' 'The 
American Constitution of 1789 was a faithful copy, 
so far as it was possible to make one out of the ma- 
terials in hand, of the contemporary Constitution of 
England. The position and powers of the President 
were a fair counterpart of the royal prerogative of 
that day; the Senate and Congress corresponded suf- 
ficiently well to the House of Lords and the House of 
Commons, allowing for the absence of the elements 
of hereditary rank and territorial influence. While 
the English Constitution has changed much, the 
American Constitution has changed little, if at all, 
in these respects. Allowing for the more democratic 
character of the constituencies, the organization of 
the supreme power in the United States is nearer 
the English type of the last century — is less modern, 
in fact — than is the English Constitution of the pres- 
ent day." 

This is very English, indeed — English with a von- 
(182) 



CONSTITUTION. 483 

geance. And yet we presume this is the current 
view on both sides of the sea. 

It is not for us to laud unseemly our constitutional 
heritage. It would require a volume larger than 
this to contain the eulogiums it has received from 
statesmen in every land. Thomas Jefferson, a life- 
long student of statecraft, and author of the immor- 
tal Declaration of Independence, said of the Ameri- 
can Constitution: "Compared with those of Europe 
[not excepting the British Constitution], it is like a 
comparison of heaven and hell." 

The giant Gladstone, Englishman as he is, said of 
it: "It is the most wonderful work ever struck off 
at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." 

The incomparable William Pitt, backed by the 
largest majority in Parliament ever possessed by a 
prime minister, exclaimed: "It will be the wonder 
and admiration of all subsequent ages, and the model 
of all future constitutions." 

Such encomiums could be given almost beyond 
enumeration. 

But it is not so much our purpose to eulogize our 
heritage, as it is to declare what our heritage is, and 
from w r hence we received it; to walk through our 
constitutional palace, received by inheritance, and 
point out the riches — the spoils of wisdom and 
statecraft — bequeathed to us by our fathers. Brie 
a-brac and etagere, cornice and frieze, with boss\ 
sculpture graven, picturette and statuette — all oi 
minor importance — must be passed by without men 



1S4 PATRIOTISM. 

tion. Not that we depreciate them, not that we are 
ungrateful for them, not that we would be prodigal 
and spendthrift, squandering them, not knowing 
their value, but because our riches are so multitudi- 
nous and multifarious, a complete enumeration 
would go beyond the bounds or the space allotted to 
this chapter. 

From whence and from whom have we derived 
our world-famed and universally-admired Consti- 
tution ? 

1 From Greece. Here, more than twenty centu- 
ries ago, twelve colonies declared themselves inde- 
pendent and free, and set up the first strictly demo- 
cratic government in the history of the world. In 
that early dawn of civilization, they declared the 
right to rule inherent in the common people, denied 
the divine right of kings, trampled under feet that 
precious doctrine of crowns and thrones, that the 
masses are created simply to serve as "hewers of 
wood and drawers of water" for autocrats and mon- 
archs, declaring in fact, if not in phraseology, that 
theirs should be a "government of the people, for 
the people, and by the people." 

Achaia was the first United States, iEgium the 
first Washington city, and the Achaean League the 
first federal republican constitution. 

This little republic, whose twelve States, com- 
bined, were smaller than West Virginia, and whose 
population was less than the present population of 
Illinois, resisted all the Alexanders and Caesars and 



AMPHICTrONIC COUNCIL. 185 

Napoleons, within and without, 134 years, and be- 
queathed to us and other republics her divinely-in- 
spired Constitution, and her thrilling and imperish- 
able history and example. Glorious inheritance! 

2. The Amphictyonic Council. This was the 
most Ancient Congress, whose members possessed 
delegated power. But, as the Achsean League was 
composed of twelve colonies, in which the represen- 
tatives voted by colonies, as the delegates to our 
Continental Congress voted by States, in the Am- 
phictyonic Council the members represented tribes, 
without any reference whatever to geographical 
boundaries. 

Each of the twelve tribes, irrespective of num- 
bers, wealth or size of territory occupied, was en- 
titled to two representatives. And although there 
was a greater disparity between certain of the tribes 
than there is between Rhode Island and New York 
or Texas, the vote of the representative of the small- 
est and weakest tribe counted as much as the vote 
of the representative of the most opulent and power- 
ful tribe. 

Here the framers of our Constitution received the 
idea embodied in the preamble that prefaces our 
Constitution: "We, the people [not we, the States, 
but we, the people] of the United States {irrespective 
of State lines] do ordain and establish this Consti- 
tution." 

Here, too, was suggested our Senate, composed 
of two members from each State, irrespective of 



186 PATRIOTISM. 

wealth, area, or population — a necessary security of 
the smaller States against the encroachments of the 
greater States. 

3. The Witenagemot. This body was the parent 
of the present British Parliament. In the days of 
the early Anglo-Saxon kings, the powers and pre- 
rogatives of the throne were absolute, as in Russia 
to-day. But a tide of democratic sentiment swept 
over the island kingdom, and the throne was com- 
pelled to part with many prerogatives. Concession 
after concession was won by a triumphant people, 
until every citizen, independent of position or pos- 
session, whether near the throne or far away, was 
allowed a vote in the conduct of affairs, both inter- 
nal and foreign. 

This congress the Anglo-Saxons called, "The 
Witenagemot." This body, despite the frowns of 
royalty, hilarious, almost delirious with enthusiastic 
liberty, enjoying to the full the exhilarating zest of 
unwonted power, reserved to itself the sole right to 
declare war, make treaties, levy and collect taxes 
and imposts, disburse the public funds, make laws, 
pass judgment and sentence in certain cases, as in 
impeachment trials, and, in short, perform most of 
the functions of its present child, the British Parlia- 
ment. 

But it was impossible for every citizen to attend 
all, or, indeed, any part of the sessions of the Wit- 
enagemot; hence the power to act for individuals or 
communities w r as delegated to one person, usually a 



AULIC COUNCIL. 1ST 

person of wealth and title — able to contribute to the 
public weal the necessary time and expense — and 
from this germ grew the English House of Lords. 
Now, for *'Witenageniot" substitute ''Senate," and 
for "king," "President," and you will see how rich 
was our inheritance from our Anglo-Saxon fathers. 

4. The German Aulic Council. One year after 
the discovery of America, there was a powerful up- 
rising of the masses in Germany, when Maximilian I. 
came to the throne. So mighty and menacing to the 
throne was the revolution, the king consented to 
two houses, one to be known as the Imperial Cham- 
ber, the other as the Aulic Council; one to represent 
the crown, the other to represent the common people. 

It is true, the two houses were judicial, rather 
than legislative; and yet, in the fact that the upper 
house could not over-ride the will of the lower house, 
nor vice versa, and that the crown could not use 
coercion to compel desired decisions, nor disregard 
the expressed pleasure of the houses, we see fore- 
shadowings of our great American Constitution. 

5. The Swiss Confederation. In 1352, a king, 
not unlike the English Greorge III., was on the 
throne of Austria. Eight Swiss colonies, by their 
representatives, affixed their names to an immortal 
declaration of independence. Almost one hundred 
years prior, under the leadership of Rudolph of 
Hapsburg, a similar leap for liberty was made, but 
was betrayed by the leader's own son. 

But in 1352 the times were ripe for revolution, 



188 PATRIOTISM. 

and the Swiss achieved their independence, which 
they preserved intact, until Napoleon, in 1798, over- 
threw the valiant Alpine republic. The peace of 
1815, brought by the overthrow of Bonaparte at 
Waterloo, restored independence to the heroic Swiss 
confederation, which it still maintains. 

Thus, when the f ramers of our Constitution assem- 
bled, they had before them the chart by which the 
Swiss republic had been securely guided 435 years, 
without a single defeat from without, or serious 
revolution within. 

Who can estimate the value of this chart to our 
constitutional fathers ? Who is able to compute the 
richness and greatness of our heritage ? 

6. The Venetian Bepublic. For over 1,000 years 
the Venetian republic held aloft her proud head, 
holding in one hand the blue waters of the Mediter- 
ranean, in the other the golden waters of the Adriatic, 
while the prows of her ships were at the forefront of 
discovery and commerce. 

Thus, when the Huns were infesting the dark old 
forests of Germany, Scandinavian pirates were 
cruising where Paris now stands, and ascending the 
Thames, to the present site of London, and Oxford 
and Cambridge were the seats of Druid worship, 
bloody, mysterious and awful, the Venetian repub- 
lic, the very same republic that still held sway 
when Cornwallis capitulated to Washington at York- 
town, was able to bid defiance to all the George the 
Thirds, of land and sea. 



MAGNA CHAKTA. 189 

Thus we are the inheritors of the trophies of the 
ages. What wonder is it that the greatest states- 
men and studeuts of constitutions go into ecstasies 
extravagant, into rhapsodies sonorous and eloquent, 
over our Magna Charta. The compact of the 
Achaean League, of the Amphictyonic Council, of 
the Wetenagemot, the Imperial Chamber and the 
Aulic Council, of the Swiss confederacy, and of the 
Venetian republic, were each, in their turn and day, 
the marvel of the world. Their praises were chanted 
by poets, proclaimed by orators, and perpetuated in 
painting and sculpture. 

Such did, indeed, mark a new epoch, a more 
glorious day, the gateway back to Eden. Each was 
a prophecy of something better to come. They 
were the epics of aspiration, and the ideals of free- 
dom. They were the index fingers of the upward 
and onward march. They were the stars that came 
out, one by one, hanging pendant in the black pit 
of surrounding despotisms, yet growing brighter 
and brighter, until the bright particular star arose 
over the manger in the New World, and wise men 
hastened from the east, to pay their homage, and 
swell the chorus of praise. 

Our Constitution gathers "in one glow of associ- 
ated beauty the pride of every model, and the per- 
fection of every master/' It is the Jupiter in the 
constellation of constitutions, and the diamond in 
tl-' cown of nations. Well may the great William 
Pitt, afterward Earl of Chatham, exclaim: 'Tt will 



190 PATRIOTISM. 

be the wonder and admiration of all subsequent 
ages, and the model of all future constitutions." 

Fellow countrymen, guard well the Constitution. 
It is the palladium of our liberties, the pillar and 
cloud of our pilgrimage, the gate of amethyst and 
gold, of sardonyx and sapphire, into our political 
and national millennium. 

INSTITUTIONS. 

We have been speaking of our Constitution; but 
that is only the foundation of our national temple. 
We must never make the mistake of calling the 
foundation the building. Here is where many err 
religiously. Christ is, indeed, the Foundation, but 
the building remains to be reared, each one for him- 
self. Foolish, beyond human comprehension, will 
be the man expecting to be sheltered from the blasts 
of eternity on a simple foundation, whereon he has 
built neither wall nor roof. 

When our constitutional foundation was laid, we 
had reached only the beginning, and not the end — 
the alpha, not the omega. Upon that wonderful 
foundation was to be uplifted the fair fabric of a 
new regime. Having spent so much time inspecting 
the foundation, and convinced, beyond doubt, of its 
superlative merit, and its imperishable character, we 
can give but a cursory glance at the many-spired 
institutions resting upon it, with fingers pointing 
hopeward, Goclward, and eternityward. Look at 
the institutions: 



MARTYRS. 191 

1. Of Liberty. And, in order to be brief and 
comprehensive, we must be analytic. 

First: Liberty of Conscience. We worship God 
to-day according to the dictates of our own individ- 
ual consciences. We ask no man what our faith 
shall be, at whose shrine we shall worship, or how 
we shall keep in fellowship with the Father of us 
all. We have priests and preachers, still; we shall 
always have them; we love and honor them for their 
words and works, but they do not compel us, by 
physical force, to adopt their dogmas and doctrines. 
Their only coercion is that of superior wisdom and 
Christ-like love. 

But the clay was, and still is, in many lands, 
when men were not allowed to do their own think- 
ing on political and religious subjects, nor to 
worship God as their own hearts and consciences 
prompted them to do. The ashes of saintly Wicklyffe 
were scattered on the waters, and John Huss, Jer- 
ome of Prague, Savonarola, and an innumerable host 
were burned, hanged, quartered, drowned, strangled 
and put to death by every conceivable torture — 
why? Bad men? No! Traitors? No! Disloyal 
to God? No! Why, then? Because they must 
needs do their own thinking, and be obedient to 
God, who spake in the holy of holies of their own 
conscience. 

Every mountain top in Europe blazed with the 
fagots of martyrdom, and every valley depth was 

luged with innocent blood. Murder and rapine 



192 PATKIOTISM. 

ran riot, and men and women were put to death, 
not because they were not religious enough, but 
because they were too religious. 

The opening of the new world was like the 
swinging back of the gates of paradise. What cared 
the hunted, hounded, burning, bleeding saints of 
God for the savage men and the more savage nature, 
if they could but be permitted to worship God as 
their consciences bade them do ? And hither they 
came by tens of hundreds, and by hundreds of thous- 
ands. Let Felicia Hemans tell the rest of the 
story: 

"The breaking waves dashed high, 

On a stern and rock-bound coast, 
And the woods, against a stormy sky, 

Their giant branches tossed. 

"And the heavy night hung dark 
The hills and waters o'er, 
Then a band of exiles moored their bark 
On a wild New England shore. 

"Not as the conqueror comes, 
They, the true-hearted, came; 
Not with the roll of the stirring drums, 
Nor the trumpet that sings of fame. 

"Not as the flying come, 
In silence and in fear;— 
They shook the depths of the desert gloom 
With their hymns of lofty cheer. 

"Amidst the storm they sang, 

And the stars heard, and the sea; 
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods ran* 
To the anthem of the free. 



DISCOVERER. , 193 

"The ocean eagle soared 

From his nest by the white waves' foam, 
And the rocking pines of the forest roared, — 
This was their welcome home. 

''There were men with hoary hair 
Amidst that pilgrim band; 
Why had they come to wither there, 
Away from their childhood's land? 

"There was woman's fearless eye, 
Lit by her deep love's truth; 
There was manhood's brow, serenely high, 
And the fiery heart of youth. 

"What sought they, thus, afar? 
Bright jewels of the mine? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? — 
They sought a faith's pure shrine. 

"Aye, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod; 
They have left unstained what there they found, — 
Freedom to worship God." 

Second: Liberty of action. When Columbus dis- 
covered America the world was governed by the 
Pontiff, on the Tiber. He was not simply an eccle- 
siastical despot, but a temporal despot also. Even 
kings, the proudest and mightiest, were compelled 
to do the Pontiff's bidding, however galling, unreas- 
onable, foolish, or absolutely suicidal. 

Philip, the Fair, of France, displeased the power 
at Rome. What was the result ? The Pope issued 
an edict that no marriages could be celebrated, or 
funerals conducted with religious ceremonies, 



194 PATRIOTISM. 

throughout France, until this particular man con- 
fessed to his holy highness. 

Henry IV., of Germany, displeased the Pope. 
Immediately the Pope set emissaries to work to 
overthrow the king, and succeeded. The king came 
to expostulate with the Pope, but God's so-called 
vicegerent compelled him to stand barefoot, and 
semi-nude, out of doors, in the snow and rigors of 
midwinter, three clays and nights, before he would 
hear his petition. Many a proud and haughty king 
was compelled to lie down upon the floor, and allow 
the Roman Pontifl' to place his feet upon his neck 
and head, as a symbol of humble submission. And, 
when kings were so severely handicapped, one can sur- 
mise the severity visited upon the humbler classes. 

But out Constitution guarantees liberty. Our 
creed declares that "all men are created free and 
equal," that they are "endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights; that among these 
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It 
has passed into adage that ours is a "government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people." 
Hence, in the United States, every man is a Caesar, 
a sovereign, a king, not by decrees of men, but by 
letters patent from the court of heaven, and by the 
authority of Almighty God. How glorious our 
heritage! How enviable our lot! 

But again: Consider our institutions. 

2. Of Education. Notice here: 

First: Education of the intellect. "Ignorance," 



EDUCATION. 195 

says Rome, "is the mother of devotion." What 
wonder is it there is a rising tide of antagonism be- 
tween the powers on the Potomac and on the Tiber ? 
What wonder the one is in the ascendant, and the 
other decadent ? What surprise that one faces the 
future, and the other the past; one represents the 
sunrise, and the other the sunset ? 

Having already discussed the subjects, "Educa- 
tion," and "Our Common Schools," we need not be 
elaborate here. But it cannot be repeated too often: 
Education and liberty go hand in hand. Ignorance 
and slavery are common bed-fellows. Whoever 
strikes at our educational interests, strikes at our 
government. He who proposes to Romanize our 
common schools, proposes to revolutionize our insti- 
tions — to revolve them backward — Rome-ward, 
slaveward and deathward. He who says, "Divide 
the public funds, that we may educate our children 
as a foreign, un-American, anti-republican Pontifi 
dictates," is guilty of treason; and he who says: 
"Away with your American educational institu- 
tions," is an assassin in intent, and levels his sword 
at Columbia's heart. God preserve our educational 
institutions. 

Second: Education of the heart. Liberty and 
light! What promoters and conservators they are 
of heart culture! This is seen in the character of 
our schools and colleges. Despite the railing of 
Rome, they are Christian. Look abroad, where 
despotisms abound, and education is fragmentary, 



196 PATRIOTISM. 

and to serve despotic purposes. What is the char- 
acter of teachers and students alike ? With some 
rare exceptions, they are atheistic and anarchistic. 
We see the same thing in the make-up of many of our 
incoming guests from those lands. 

Somewhat scholarly, but rabid and deadly, is 
the virus of the great serpent. Wine and beer 
drinking, gambling and duelling, are the principal 
occupations of a majority of the students in conti- 
nental universities. It has been said that the great- 
est hotbeds of Nihilism in Europe are the universi- 
ties of Berlin and St. Petersburg. 

In the United States, liberty as boundless as the 
undulations of the sea, and light as full and unre- 
strained as the emanations of the sun, mellow and 
enrich the heart, and transfigure the daily life. 
. 3. Progress. This topic is stated, not for discus- 
sion, for space is lacking, but to awaken thought 
and gratitude. What wonderful progress have we 
made: 

First: In mechanics. That America leads the 
world in this department, no one questions. Ameri- 
can ingenuity is the marvel of the world. We talk 
by lightning and w T alk by steam. We delve the 
mountains, bridge the oceans and lasso the stars. 
Our Patent Office reports of inventions is as difficult 
of apprehension to foreigners as the reports of John's 
apocalyptic visions. Tourists from the old world 
stand or ride a-gape and a-stare, from ocean to 
ocean. 



SCIENCE. 197 

Second: Our progress in science. Our Frank- 
lins and Morses, Sillimans and Pierces, Proctors 
and Edisons, are tall enough to be seen around the 
world. Even provincial Britain and Germany do 
us homage here. 

Third: Our progress in philanthropy. Here 
again we challenge, not simply the attention, not 
simply the admiration, but the astonishment of the 
oldest governments of earth. Now, where is official 
charity so boundless, private philanthropy so open- 
handed, and secret beneficence so constant and abun- 
dant as in the land of the victorious free. What asy- 
lums for the blind, deaf, dumb, and the mind-be- 
nighted! What refuges for the aged! . What or- 
phanages and homes and retreats for abandoned 
or unfortunate youth or aged! What hospitals for 
the reception of the sick and maimed! What asso- 
ciations for the recovery and uplifting of fallen men 
and women ! We do not say that other nations are 
unphilanthropic; but we do claim that, in open-handed 
and munificent philanthropy, the land of light and 
liberty and the cultured heart leads the world. 

Fourth: Our progress in reforms. Take one, 
alone, as an illustration: The great temperance re- 
form. While the world beyond the sea is apathetic, 
and many countries are unconcerned, and some are 
absolutely opposed to reform, our people are on fire 
with a holy and righteous zeal. Millions of money, 
tons of literature, and scores of human lives, are 
being poured out as freely as the sun emits light. 



198 



PATRIOTISM. 



And triumph is as inevitable as fate, and the spring- 
time is already at hand. 

Our inheritance in our men, our Constitution and 
our institutions, how great! Only the tongue of an 
angel could tell it; only the pen of an archangel 
could record it. And yet we are only in our baby- 
hood; what prophet can arise and tell us what the 
possibilities of the future are, when we shall have 
attained to national, educational, moral and spirit- 
ual maturity ? Let us hallow the memory of our 
ancestors, from whom we have inherited so much. 
Let us cherish with loving fidelity, and with unwav- 
ering patriotism, our inheritance! 




OUR HERITAGE, 

OUR RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 

TO MANIFEST IT 



What pity it is 
That we can die but once to serve our country. 

— Addison. 

One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, 
One Nation evermore. 

— Holmes. 

Much is the patriot's weeding hand required. 

— Thomson. 

A star for every State, and a State for ever star. 

— Winthrop. 

If one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him 
on the spot. 

John A. Bix. 

We join our selves to no party that does not carry theflig, 
and keep step to the music of the Union. 

— Choate. 

American patriotism must be a household virtue. 

— Bee c her. 

Our Country! May she always be in the right; but our country 
right or wrong. 

— Decatur. 

Our Federal Union; it must be preserved. 

— Andrew Jackson 



U*ii) 



CHAPTER XV. 



OUR HERITAGE. — III. OUR RIGHT AND ORLIGATION TO 
MANIFEST IT. 

John Jones is an exceedingly strange man. He 
is the most industrious man in the entire community 
or communities surrounding. At three o'clock in 
the morning, at ten o'clock at night, and, for aught 
his neighbors know, all night, and certainly all day, 
John Jones is hard at work. 

His neighbors wonder when he finds time to 
sleep. His hands are calloused, his face is wrinkled, 
his back is semi-circular, instead of being perpendicu- 
lar, and, as he goes by, everybody exclaims: "John 
Jones is working himself to death. " Then they in- 
dulge in reminiscences. One was passing by Jones' 
at eleven o'clock, another at twelve, another at one, 
another at two, and so on, clear around the dial face 
of the clock, and each saw John Jones busy at work. 
Strange man, was John Jones — a very prodigy of 
industry. 

But he was also remarkable for his economy. 
People wondered if the hat he wore did not once be- 
long to Noah, and if his coat, old, and by far too 
small for him, was not the same one Hannah made 
(199) 



2)0 PATRIOTIS3I. 

for Samuel, or, certainly, the one Paul forgot and 
left behind at Troas. 

The oldest hatter and bootter could scarcely re- 
member when John Jones made his last purchase in 
their department. But, upon reflection, they recall 
the fact that he carefulty selected the most substan- 
tial goods, and asked no credit. For fancy neck 
and wrist paraphernalia he had no use whatever. 
He was simply plain, hard-working, unassuming 
John Jones. 

But his economy was also noticeable in the dining- 
room. Not that he was miserly in providing for the 
table, but severely economical. He did not feast 
his family upon the brains of peacocks, and the 
tongues of nightingales. Not because he was un- 
willing to make the expenditure, but because it 
would be an unnecessary, foolish, even sinful ex- 
penditure, when bacon was only ten cents a pound, 
meal forty cents a bushel, and the family could 
make its own hominy. 

He was an abundant provider, but it was along 
the line of severely substantial things. No family 
was more robust and rubicund than John Jones, 
none apparently happier; none larger of body, of 
head, or of heart. 

But to his marvelous industry and economy he 
added the acquisitive instinct. He was a money- 
maker and a money-saver. Whatever he touched 
turned to gold; and the gold in his hand brought 
fovth fruit monthly an hundredfold. He was no 



JOHN JONES. 201 

miser. He gave his part to the maintenance of so- 
ciety, church and State. He was no Shylock. He 
was close and persistent, but not unmerciful. He 
was not a legal wrangler; he never went to law; he 
was never brought to law. He would compromise; 
he would let even his enemies compose a board of 
arbitration, and decide what was rightfully his; he 
would even lose outright, before he would waste 
time, temper and money on law} T ers, witnesses and 
courts. 

He became rich. What wonder! Industry, 
economy and acquisitiveness, so strongly marked, 
could not fail to result in vast accumulations. He 
added farm to farm, business block to business 
block, bank account to bank account. He was 
quiet, yet most potent on 'Change, and in railway 
and steamship circles. He was a thousandaire, then 
a millionaire, then a billionare. At last, ripe in 
years and rich in integrity, he died, and was gath- 
ered unto his fathers, leaving his children a rich 
inheritance. Now, I have two questions to pro- 
pound: 

What right have outsiders to come in and squan- 
der John Jones' estate ? John Jones loved his fam- 
ily; he toiled for them; he denied himself for their 
sakes. Having millions, he lived on a pittance. 
Many of his clerks spent twice the money he did. 
It took more to keep his coachman than to keep 
him. In other words, though he was rich, yet he 
became poor for the enrichment of those he loved. 



202 PATRIOTISM. 

He remembered his own early struggles, Ms pinch- 
ing poverty, his biting want. He remembered the 
time when he actually suffered for the necessaries of 
life. 

Out of his great, loving, passionate heart went forth 
a deathless resolution to save his loved children from 
such toil, hardship and stinging want. For three 
score years and ten he struggled. Footsore and 
weary, he struggled bravely on. And when men 
jeered and scoffed — when they mocked and railed, 
when they called him a miser and a Shylock, when 
they hurled opprobrious epithets at him, he thought 
of his babies, from one to ten, some of them ad- 
vanced in years, indeed, but his babies still, and he 
toiled joyfully on. 

What right has the ruthless, blatant, sacrilegious 
outsider to lay hands on what the tender-hearted, 
heroic, hard-working John Jones, by toil and 
self-sacrifice, amassed for his children, who were 
dearer to him than life % 

What right have John Jones' children to squander 
their father's estate — to allow outsiders to come in 
and make away with their father's hard earnings; to 
scatter with brief prodigality the fruits of years of 
frugality % 

Plainly, they nave the right to maintain, but not 
the right to fling to the whirlwind. More than that, 
it becomes a mark of filial love and moral integrity, 
to guard the estate, and devote it to the purposes 
near and dear to the father's heart. To squander it 



FOREIGNERS. 203 

themselves, or to permit outsiders to pillage and 
appropriate it, would indicate a lack of filial affec- 
tion, and an appalling depth of moral depravity. 

Let me introduce John Jones: John Jones is 
none other than Uncle Sam. And we are Uncle 
Sam's children, and the inheritors of his vast estates. 
We come back to our first question: 

What right have foreigners to come in and waste 
our father's proud and rich domain ? As Uncle 
Sam's children, we inherit an ideal form of govern- 
ment, and a history more thrilling than the most 
brilliant periods of Greek and Koman dramatists — 
a history woven by the shuttles of wars and pestil- 
ences, of toils and triumphs^ of miseries and halele- 
lujahs; a historic fabric, bedewed with the tears of 
innocent anguish, and crimson with such blood as 
flows only in the veins of God-like men and women; 
a historic warp and woof, in which every thread rep- 
resents a life — a life rich in love, man- ward, God- 
ward and country-ward, and enrolled on the book of 
heaven's and eternity's nobility. Every spot, from 
Plymouth Bock to the Golden Gate, is marked and 
hallowed with the bloody knee-prints of our Uncle 
Sam, true to God and devoted to his children. 

Consider our fathers. There were giants in those 
days. The Adamses, Hancocks, Henrys and Jefter- 
sons, the Franklins, Hamiltons, Washingtons — ah 
me ! When can their glory fade ? They are the 
mountain-summits of our history. Hoary civiliza- 
tion, behold them and wonder. 



20 J: PATRIOTISM. 

Consider our Constitution. Dwell long upon its 
cost. Make a pilgrimage from Bunker Hill to York- 
town. You do not know the way? Do you say: 
U I am not familiar with their line of march !'' Ah, 
you cannot miss it. Follow the places of prayer; 
keep your eyes on the bloody foot-prints; count the 
skeletons and the graves. Did I say, Count the 
cost ? We will not impose an impossible task. The 
cost of the Constitution was more than the tallest 
and the fairest archangel, standing by the throne of 
God, could compute in a century of eternities — cost 
in tears, and broken hearts, and ruined lives. Talk 
about pilgrimages to the holy sepulchre. Rather 
traverse the way from despotism to freedom; up the 
mount from slavery to liberty, with uncovered head 
and with unsandaled feet. Our Constitution is the 
Ark of the Covenant. Perish the sacrilegious 
wretch who would lay hands upon it. It is the north 
star, upon which the eye of every patriotic mariner 
is fixed with fond and unwavering steadfastness. 
Long may it shine in the constellation of constitu- 
tions; long may it beam in our national firmament! 

Consider our institutions. We may estimate their 
cost in dollars and cents; but who can estimate their 
cost in toil and sacrifices? Our fathers, deprived of 
education, feeling the sting of literary ignorance, 
and famishing for the loftiest learning and culture, 
bequeathed to us free public schools, colleges and 
universities. 

Afoot, they trudged across the continent, again 



STRANGEKS. 205 

and again, with compass and chain, with spade and 
shovel, with hammer and sledge, that we might 
ride in Pullman palace cars, and be transported from 
rim to rim, or from center to circumference, on 
cushioned seats or in downy beds, and with the 
celerity, almost, of lightning. 

They were strangers in a strange land; they were 
in prison, and none to visit them; they were sick, 
and none to medicine or nurse them; they were with- 
out raiment, and none to clothe their nakedness; 
their only liberator was the shaggy monster, Death; 
their only place of refuge, the dark and silent 
grave. 

Their hearts bled for us, their children. They 
toiled, and hoarded their mites; they economized 
and sacrificed; they denied themselves all the luxu- 
ries and elegancies of life; and, with amazing love 
and forgetfulness of self, they reared asylums and 
refuges, retreats, and homes, free sanitariums and 
hospitals. 

And why all this suffering and sacrifice, this ex 
penditure of brain and brawn, this pouring out of 
heart and soul ? Because haters of ' liberty drove 
our fathers into exile. Because our fathers' aspira- 
tions were offensive to them. Because they could 
not brook the lofty piety and patriotism, the uncon- 
querable love and ambition of our fathers for their 
children. 

Read the story of English, French, German and 
Roman persecution. Only the pen of a Dante, 



206 PATRIOTISM. 

dipped in the ichor of the Inferno, could adequately 
portray it. What right, we ask, have those men or 
their sons to come into the possessions bequeathed us 
by our fathers \ What right have they to come and 
slander and traduce the memory of our heroic and self- 
sacrificing progenitors ? To lay sacrilegious hands 
upon our sacred Ark of the Covenant, the Constitu- 
tion of the United States ? To plot the overthrow 
of our educational system, and despotize, foreignize 
and neutralize that institution, so dear to our fath- 
ers, and so essential to our liberties ? To inveigh 
against the Sabbath — holy boon from heaven, heri- 
tage of onr fathers — and seek its annihilation in 
Bacchanalian revels and unspeakably iniquitous or 
gies ? To antagonize all our peculiar institutions, 
and render nugatory, as long as possible, our re- 
formatory efforts? To come with dirk and bludg- 
eon, with firearms and dynamite, to propagate nihil- 
ism, socialism and anarchy, to compel us to be anti- 
American, or hurl us, without a moment's warning, 
into eternity ? 

W T e are not inhospitable to honorable guests. No 
accent or language, no color of skin or texture of 
hair weakens or diminishes our welcome for the 
guest who comes with upright intent. For all such, 
up to the measure of our capacity, our doors swing 
open both ways. All honor to the loyal, patriotic 
American, Englishman, Irishman, German, Swede, 
Italian, or even Zulu and Hottentot. 

But we are inhospitable to the man whose citi- 



HOSPITALITY. 207 

zenship is in London, Dublin, Berlin or Kome, 
or any other foreign city or country. We are 
inhospitable to the man who seeks to Swedenize, 
Germanize or Romanize the United States. Let all 
such go back from whence they came, where they 
can have those things in their purity. As for us, 
we are not English or Swedish, or German or Ro- 
man — we are Americans, and we propose to be 
American in all our thoughts, ways and institu- 
tions. We are inhospitable to the assassin. We 
have not even yard-room for the apostles of dirk 
and dynamite, whether dirk and dynamite be for 
our individual hearts, or the hearts of our blood- 
bought institutions. 

Nor will Columbia tolerate the assassin much 
longer. She feels she has been criminally negligent; 
that she has erred on the side of mercy, and, though 
on the side of mercy, she has erred, and deserves 
reproof; that she must drive the disloyal assassin 
out, even though a scourge of scorpions be the only 
sufficient weapon. 

For the upright, loyal, honorable citizen, who 
loves principle better than he loves his native land, 
though dotted with the graves of his sires, and 
blooming with trysting places of love, who comes 
to us from beyond the sea, to find for himself and 
his children a home, who lives in loving loyalty to 
the Constitution, laws and institutions of the coun- 
try that shelters him and gives him a place of refuge 
from the blast and storm — for that man, whether 



208 PATRIOTISM. 

from Dublin or Calcutta, whether from the land of 
the midnight sun or the sounding seas beneath the 
Southern Cross, our ports, our hearts and our homes 
are open wide, and our hospitality is as free as the 
falling dew, and as boundless as our ability. But 
for the man who refuses to naturalize and become 
an American citizen, who comes to sow the seed of 
dissension, and dissatisfaction, who comes with red 
flag, bloody bowie, and smoking, murderous dy- 
namite — for that man we have no use whatever. 
In other words, we will be hospitable to those to 
whom our fathers would be hospitable, were they 
still living, and in the old homestead — and to none 
else. 

What right have we to squander our fathers' es- 
tate? We have been considering the foreigner's 
right to that which does not belong to him; we press 
now that intenser theme of our own rights to that 
which we have not earned, but inherited, and that, 
too, under certain conditions. Our inheritance is 
as sacred as a mother's prayer, or a sister's or 
daughter's honor. Fancy Hannibal, after having 
kissed his father's sword, and at the altar, while the 
evening incense rose to heaven, sworn eternal ven- 
geance against Kome, and inherited his father's ac- 
coutrements of war, and command — fancy him, after 
that, becoming an ally of Kome. and using his 
sword for her advancement and glorification! Think 
of the sons of Lincoln and Grant becoming allies of 
secessionists, and prostituting the heritage of their 



RIGHTS. 209 

fathers to disloyal and rebellious persons and pur- 
poses! Think of the gaunt, ghost-like skeletons 
that came out of Libby prison, or their sons, or 
their sons' sons, becoming champions of that heart- 
less tyranny, and squandering their heritage on 
those whose breath was treason, and whose daily 
prayer was for the destruction of our republic! 

Oh, no! We have not the right to stand idly by, 
and listen to the disparagement of our fathers. We 
have not the right to permit ruthless hands to rend 
our Constitution. We have not the right to allow 
our institutions — our Sabbaths, our schools, and 
other institutions peculiar to us — trampled under 
foot. 

We have not the right to allow our country to be 
foreignized. To do so would be unfilial; we would 
be violating a sacred trust. Our sires would arise 
from their graves and rebuke. The blood of innu- 
merable battle-fields would cry out against us. The 
spirits of the unreturning braves, whose bodies are 
scattered all the way from the fisheries of the Pine 
Tree State to the seals of Alaska, and from the wheat 
fields of Manitoba to the halls of the Montezumas, 
would testify against us at the judgment. 

In our conflicts we have been without allies. 
America has had to fight her own battles. Think 
of the days of the Revolution. Not only was Brit- 
ain against us, but other nations were ready to 
smite us, if they could only be paid to do so. It is 
true, there were a few foreigners on our side, but, as 



210 PATRIOTISM. 

a rule, they were more actuated by hatred of Britain 
than by love of America, and the institutions for 
which she was struggling. 

Look at the war of 1812. It was another life and 
death struggle for rights intrusted. 

Look at the awful Civil War. We know now who 
said to the South: "Strike, and we will see you 
through. Come hither to our docks for war-ships; 
to our arsenal for ammunition; to our banks for 
money." We marveled at the boldness of the 
South. Well she might be bold, with such sympa- 
thy and secret co-operation. 

Our struggle still is not with each other so much 
as with the interloper, in the service of powers, 
plotting our destruction. 

Who is at the bottom of our trouble with the 
liquor monster ? Were it not for the anti-American 
hordes, we could banish the saloon in ninety days. 
Who is at the bottom of the agitation against the 
Christian Sabbath ? Who are running the saloons, 
the beer gardens, the Sunday trains and Sunday 
newspapers, with increasing Sabbath desecration? 
Who is at the bottom of the war against our public 
schools, openly and without disguise ? By whom 
is Mormonism, yonder, between the mountains, 
fostered and fattened ? By whom is the war against 
the marriage relation waged, with lax views of the 
sanctity and obligations of wedlock ? 

By that class of foreigners who would not be tol- 
erated in their own country; but in this land of lib- 



ENEMIES. 211 

erty, where liberty is often only the synonim foi 
license, they claim the right to mould our institu- 
tions to suit their own purposos. Indeed, it has 
been elaborately argued that the spirit which smote 
our martyr President, Abraham Lincoln, received 
its strongest impulse from beyond our own shores. 
Oh, fellow-citizens, as we venerate the memory 
of our sires, and as we appreciate the priceless heri- 
tage bequeathed us, let us inscribe upon our banners 
this motto: "Welcome and hospitality for the loyal 
American Citizen, whether from under the South- 
ern Cross or under the Northern Bear, whether 
African, Asiatic, European or American; but for 
the minions of foreign powers, whether civil or ec- 
clesiastical, not one foot of land, not one iota of 
political power, not one spot for residence." Or, to 
put the same sentiment in fewer words: "America 
for Americans. " 

"Our fathers' God, to thee, 
Author of Liberty, 

To thee we sing; 
Long may our land be bright, 
With Freedom's holy light; 
Protect us by thy might, 

Great God, our King." 



A Christian is the highest style of a man. 

— Young 

This world is but the rugged road, 
Which leads us to the bright abode, 

Of peace above; 
So let us choose that narrow way 
Which leads no traveller's foot astray 

From realms above. 

Longfellow. 

So, comrades, let no thought deter 

Forgiveness while we live; 
For, O, 'tis human-like to err, 

But God-like to forgive. 

—Barker. 

For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, 
And though a late, a sure reward succeeds. 

— Congreve. 



(xxiii.) 



NATIONS WITHOUT BIBLES 



CHAPTER XVI. 



NATIONS WITHOUT BIBLES. 

"Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left 
in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book 
that is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is 
poured out upon us because our fathers have not kept the 
word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book." 

Suffering for the sins of another, is not a matter 
of surprise to those who study cause and effect. 
We often spurn the idea set forth in the story of 
the fall of man, and yet acknowledge that present 
conditions are the legitimate result of the deeds of 
other men and other ages. 

The condition of Israel at the time of this com- 
mand, was simply the natural result of neglect on 
the part of preceding generations. 

Hezekiah left the kingdom in a most happy and 
prosperous condition. 

The temple worship was in its glory, and the 
priests were pure and righteous altogether; but at 
his death Manasseh came into power with an evil 
heart, and for fifty-five years sought to overthrow 
all worship at Jerusalem, by building altars to 
Baal. 

The groves were desecrated by idol worship, the 
book of the law thrown in with the rubbish, and 
(212) 



JOSIAH. 213 

at the death of Mrnasseh, Anion, his son, pursued 
the same course with all the vigor of a young man; 
until insurrection and murder ended his days, and 
the people made Josiah, his son, king. Josiah was 
but a child, but he did many things worthy of the 
most advanced and sanctified manhood. 

He set to work at once, as if inspired of God, to 
establish a system that would destroy idolatry, by 
the introduction of the unity of the God-head; and 
in so doing found the lost book. 
' For more than half a century the regular forms 
of worship had not been followed, and a people 
chosen of God to bring in the wisdom of peace, had 
wandered in idolatry and superstition, without a 
guide or chart. 

The written form of worship given to the king 
had been destroyed. The ark with its copy had 
been removed. For fifty-seven years the priest- 
hood had failed to read the law to the people, and 
speedy ruin was prophecied concerning the nation. 
Just how the judgment was, I cannot tell; indeed, 
we shall never know until in the judgment we hear 
the sentence against Manasseh and Anion. 

None can afford to put away this book. History 
shows very clearly what the result would be. We 
have only to recall the condition of those nations 
and tribes who have suffered it to be brushed aside. 

Israel suffered from this sin, and was punished 
more sorely and often, for this, than for all other 
sins; indeed, neglect of the book, and violation of 



214 PATKI0T1SM. 

its precepts, is the secret of all national calamities. 

No book of the present, or past, has held within 
its covers such measureless power for good, or has 
Been such an indisputable authority among all na- 
tions. No book has had to meet and conquer so 
many merciless enemies. No book has come forth 
from the conquest with its enemies so unscarred by 
the fires of hate, and the assaults of reason (so 
called) — yea, even with its undying truths made 
brighter and plainer by the assaults. 
: The tempests have shrieked around it, and over 
it; but it comes forth from the ordeal more beauti- 
ful than before, and with a bolder and more uncon- 
querable front than ever. 

"The Bible has scaled every barrier, surmounted 
every obstacle, lifted every difficulty, and has soared 
along the rough pathway, and in every instance has 
risen to meet the highest chambers of science. No 
book has held such an undisputed authority and 
power. No book has been so thoroughly assailed at 
every point. It has not lacked enemies. They have 
been armed with the force they call reason — the most 
gigantic weapon that can be brought to bear upon 
it. It has withstood the gale, and comes out from 
the ordeal clearer and more beautiful than before. 
Its shining beams glow with a more transparent 
lustre. 'Tis like the sun after a storm, it always 
looks more beautiful and eheerful. It has survived 
the attacks of infidelity for three thousand years; 
and stands, to-day, as clearly untarnished as it did 



BIBLE. 215 

the day it was penned. How great has it been in 
guiding and molding nations. It shapes and marks 
the destinies of empires. As man rises higher in 
the scale of science, or pierces deeper into the dark 
and mysterious unknown; and as he sends his plum- 
met line into the vista of the fathomless background 
and unlocks those hidden chambers, where the light 
for the first time dawns upon his vision and reveals 
to him the true revelations of science, 'tis here 
the Bible rises to meet this grand elevation, and 
whispering all in one sweet voice, 'It is, it is the 
Word of God."' 

Without some books with claims of supernatural 
authority, there will be many gods, and a nation 
would at once start on the road to ruin; for, as of 
old, there must come a time to test the power of the 
gods, and see who shall be greatest, and reign over 
all. 

This one evil has generated and perpetuated more 
and bloodier wars than all other evils combined. 
To-day, those nations and kingdoms who have not 
this book, are in the tide of endless death, from 
this cause. While bibles stand, and have one su- 
preme, all-controlling and eternal centre of power 
and wisdom, if the book did no more than correct 
this one evil, it would pay for all expenditure at 
home and abroad. 

But loss of the book, is more than loss of Divine 
authority; it takes with it the inspiration for know- 
ledge, and plunges men and nations into doubt and 



216 PATRIOTISM. 

ignorance. Suppose we look at Scotland, that bind 
of martyrdom, whose people read the book, and 
make it their study. Here you find not only loyal- 
ty, but intelligence. No better people come to our 
shores. They are easily Americanized, for their in- 
telligence shows them at once the value of our free 
institutions; and they become hearty in their sup- 
port of all our systems of government. 

Let us step down South now, into England. Af- 
fairs are not quite so bright there; and yet England 
has always had a bible substantially free. At least 
this has been so for many hundreds of years; and you 
will find, accordingly, a very large amount of popu- 
lar intelligence among the people of England. It 
is not strange, therefore, that you also find there a 
republic; not under the forms of a republic, but 
with all its essential characteristics. Horace White, 
of the Chicago Tribune, a keen and practical observer 
of public affairs, writes in the Fortnightly Review^ 
that England is more thoroughly a republic to-day, 
than America. She could not be so were it not for 
the popular intelligence which is diffused among her 
masses, illustrating again the influence of a free and 
open bible. 

We may visit also the other constitutional govern- 
ments of Europe. Let us enter Prussia, and there 
what do we find ? A government at times some- 
what harsh, and yet a government built upon the 
principles of constitutional liberty; we find a par- 
liament which cannot be intimidated; and a press 



GERMANY . 217 

which cannot long be muzzled in the interest of op- 
pression; and we also find that from the time of 
Martin Luther, the bible has had free course through 
all northern Germany. German}', accordingly, has 
become the home of popular intelligence. Ninety- 
six per cent, of the population of Germany read. 
Only four per cent, of all the millions of" Prussia are 
ignorant of their letters. 

But pass over into France, a kingdom practically 
without the Bible; and we find thirty per cent, of 
her men who are unable to read or write. Is there 
aDy wonder that a country surging with life, but in 
ignorance, should write the history of the lost de- 
cade ? Cross over the Alps, and Italy presents a 
different picture. Why ( Simply because her sons 
and daughters in large portions of the land, have, 
and read, the Bible. 

Lombardy, the most beautiful country in all Italy, 
since 1850 has had a few Bibles, and more than one- 
half of the people are intelligent 

In Naples, where the Bible has been most rigidly 
excluded, less than fifteen per cent, can read. In 
Spain, less than one-third can read and write. 

Upon these facts I make no comment. A free 
use of the Bible has already given universal intelli- 
gence. An open Bible, an honored Bible, is the 
very best guarantee of popular intelligence, which 
any land has ever had. 

Wherever the Book is given to the people, and 
brought into contact with the youth, in that country 



218 PATRIOTISM 

you will find schools, colleges and universities; and 
wherever it is put under a ban, kept from the 
schools, and out of the hands of the masses, there 
that people become ignorant and superstitious. 

Tell me why Italy, once the world's mistress, 
must employ other teachers, artisans and artists, 
to-day \ Why waits the heathen for Christians to 
build their railroads, bridges and factories? Ah, 
thanks be unto God, England, Scotland, and Hol- 
land, and America, found a Book, and gave it to 
their people; hence their intelligence, wealth and 
power. 

Nelson told them when dying, if they would ex- 
amine his heart they would find written all over it 
this cry: "More frigates, more frigates." These 
words represented his most intense desire in the 
hour of his greatest extremity. So when I consider 
what this Book will do for the individual soul, the 
community, the state, the nation and the whole 
world, I would thus voice the restless, but often in- 
articulate cry of humanity: "More Bibles, more 
Bibles." 

There is an old story of Africa's Prince sending 
to Queen Victoria for an explanation of England's 
greatness. The Queen gave the messenger a Bible, 
and said: "Tell the Prince this is the secret of our 
prosperity. " 

On this pivot rests the future of our beloved land. 
Happy, we, if our rulers would issue a proclamatior 
like unto our text. 



CHRISTIANITY. 219 

Once prove that our Bible is to be driven from 
the schools of our land, and the common people de- 
nied the privilege of perusing its sacred pages, and 
I bid farewell to the schools now dotting the land, 
as stars in the blue heavens. Once convince me that 
Catholicism is to reign and rule in this land, and I 
despair of the Kepublic; for I have read the story 
of Judah under the rule of Manasseh, and the sad 
history of her children. I have read the history of 
Austria, Spain, Italy and France, Mexico and South 
America; and I know of the boasts, threats and plans 
of our vigilant friends in the catholic fold. The 
same spirit that drove Christ from the homes and 
out of the temple of old, is at work to-day in our 
large cities, to drive the Bible from the schools, and 
all books of biblical thought. 

I know how many have lost confidence in the 
Book because of false interpretations, until they 
talk of it as of other books; and treat the great 
themes of human accountability and destiny with 
the flippancy of the schoolboy. 

I know that there are thousands going down 
through the apologetic stream, to doubt and death. 
In our own city, once a gentleman of real Christian 
strength and courage, an active worker in the church 
of God, having followed a religious entertainer for 
a few years, now says: "The religion of Christ, 
Buddha, Mohammet and others, has the same au- 
thority; and has no real claims on men of this age. 
The old Bible has no claim above other books." 



220 PATRIOTISM. 

But this is not the conviction of the silent, think- 
ing spirit in the moments of trouble. Some months 
since, a missionary in an Indian jail, pleading with 
the convicts, asked them if they had a Bible; none 
made reply, until a poor fellow, a murderer, spoke 
up and said: U I had one, but I sold it for drink. 
It was my companion in youth. O, that I had 
listened to and followed its teachings; then I should 
not have been here." 

; We need to do all in our power to maintain and 
Spread a feeling of confidence in the claims of the 
Book, as the only faultless guide. 

A few years ago, a man. having reached, by the 
aid of his guide, a mountain peak, became exhilarated 
by the rarified atmosphere; he dismissed his guide, 
and attempted to return alone. His companions 
returned without him, and after waiting a long time, 
resolved to go in search of him; but soon came 
back, bringing a mangled form. So it will be with 
all who having climbed the height of Christian 
civilization, shall give up the guide. Once destroy 
confidence in the Book, and darkness begins. No 
greater calamity could possibly come to our land, 
then that a generation should grow up in doubt of 
the Book's value. But I am hopeful. I believe in 
God; and His ability to open all tombs and touch 
all hearts. 

He who broke the seal of the tombs, and bade the 
Book come forth in the 16th century — He who 
preserved the law in the rubbish for fifty-seven 



PURITANS. 221 

years, still lives and knows how to win in this 
fight. Some day He will speak; and men will cry 
out: "It is God." 

History is God manifesting Himself. All ani- 
mated natnre is 

" Forever singing as they shine, 
The hand that made us is divine." 

God had a part in the laying of the foundation on 
which this great nation is builcled; and ere the pil- 
grims landed, as if by some Divine inspiration, they 
unanimously adopted the following constitution: 
"In the name of God, Amen. We, having under- 
taken for the glory of Gocl, and for the advancement 
of the Christian faith, to plant the first colony, do 
by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the 
presence of God and one another, covenant and 
agree;" and then follows a governmental code as near 
to the spirit of the New Testament as it is possible 
for men to draft it. And Judge Story, whose legal 
decisions and commentaries have made him renowned 
in all lands, in a remarkable address upon "The 
History and Influence of the Puritans," finds in the 
Bible, as believed and proclaimed by the fathers, the 
primary and permanent source of our laws; and says: 
"Let us cling with holy zeal to the Bible, and to the 
Bible only." Will we not remember, then, while 
w T e rejoice, as we have a right, in the wisdom, equity, 
and beneficence of our jurisprudence — will wo not 
remember that our grateful obligation for all this is 
to the Divine Book? 



222 PATKIOTISM. 

As I stood a few years ago in the town hall at old 
Plymouth, and read these words: ''The safety and 
purity of society rests, as it always has rested, with 
the believers of Christianity," my soul cried out, ''It 
is of God." From the Bible, thus penetrative and 
obligatory, came our legislation. 

There is no chapter in our history more interest 
ing to trace than the controlling influence of the 
Bible in the growth of our jurisprudence. Surely, 
the words of Bancroft here find corroboration, that 
every enterprise of the pilgrims began from God. 
You all remember Macaulay's brilliant and wonder 
ful apostrophe to the Puritans, in which he magm 
fies their love of the Bible as the implicit guide of 
life, and as the adjudicator of all differences. But 
the calmest observer and most dispassionate critic 
of our institutions was the distinguished De Tocque- 
ville, who has written so hopefully of our early his- 
tory. "Puritanism," says he, "was scarcely less a 
political, than a religious doctrine. In the history 
of the first legislation of the Pilgrims, you have 
most practical evidence of the source from which 
they drew." 

The people are reading the Book more than ever 
before in the history of the race. It has not lo;s 
its vitality. Think of a Chicago daily paper print- 
ing from telegraphic communication the whole of the 
New Testament. Think of the effort, and success- 
ful effort, now being made to make a part of it the 
course in all our literary institutions. Think of the 



BIBLE STUDY. 223 

schools instituted for the purpose of studying the 
Book. 

It is only within the last twenty years that Chris- 
tian workers seem to have realized the importance 
of this subject; and during that period more people 
have been engaged in the study of God's word than 
during any one hundred years of the world's prior 
history. We can only account for the emancipation 
of the Christian world from the meshes of supersti- 
tion, by the fact that an open and free Bible 
is being studied by the people, as well as by the 
priests. That safety of the nation will be greatly 
promoted by its study, is shown by its results in our 
own land during the last fifty years. u By their fruits 
shall ye know them" is as true of nations as of indi- 
viduals. England and America are bright examples 
of the effect of the word upon the masses. Germany 
and Italy have also felt its power. Even parts of 
India, China, and many of the isles of the sea, are 
being transformed by its hallowed teachings. 

When all are taught, we may look for better rul- 
ers. They will seek wise counsellors. Josiah called 
God's men and women to the highest offices. So 
with all who are imbued with the spirit of this Book. 

The study of the Bible is the hope of the church, 
because it unites all its branches in one grand effort 
to save the world; because it enables Christians to 
realize that Christ is the true vine, and all its disci- 
ples, by whatsoever name called, are the branches. 
1 'The Bible is the mirror of Divinity, the rightful 



224 PATRIOTISM. 

regent of the world. Other books are planets, shin- 
ing with reflected lustre; this book, like the sun, 
shines with an ancient and unborrowed light. Other 
books may be forgotten in the universe, when suns 
go down and disappear like bubbles in the stream; 
this book transferred to a higher clime, shall shine 
as the brightness of that eternal firmament, and as 
those brighter stars which are forever and ever. " 

Whether then, we view the subject as church- 
members or citizens, as Christians or patriots, let 
us encourage the earnest study of the Word. And 
while we have in view the hope of the church and 
the safety of the nation, like Moses, w T e may also 
"have respect unto the recompense of the reward" 
which awaits the faithful teacher of God's Word. 

Doubt, and even despair, may sometimes take 
hold of us, especially if we chance to have under our 
charge one who seems to be incorrigible. But let 
us remember that "They that be wise shall shine as 
the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn 
many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." 

Then let us join in a sacred covenant to teach the 
word of God to those who are to be rulers of the 
church and nation. Is our Christianity "an empty 
name — a barren speculation — or is it a vital princi- 
ple" \ Do we believe that the Bible is the revealed 
will of God? Do we believe that by its teachings a 
fountain may be opened whose streams will perme- 
ate society, and send forth rich blessings to the race 
— that will reform perverted public opinion, elevate 



book. 225 

society, arrest corruption, and inculcate the principle 
of purity and righteousness ? 

I greatly rejoice in the work accomplished by the 
American Bible Society, and the financial condition 
of the society. It shows that the people believe in 
the Book and in the work of scattering it among the 
people. 

I listened with pleasure and interest to a gentle- 
man from Jerusalem, as he gave a description of his 
native land. 1 was moved to think I was listening 
to a man whose feet had trodden its streets, and 
whose eyes had seen its temple. But come with me, 
and listen while God speaks of the New Jerusalem, 
built for us; and gives the people to know their pos- 
sible home. 

God forbid that we ever speak a word, or lift a 
hand that, shall in the least unsettle the confidence of 
the young in the Book, as the Word of God. 

"My Book, my Book, my grand old Book, 

Heaven speed thee on thy way, 
From pole to pole, as ages roll, 

The harbinger of day ; 
Till Christ, the Light, shall banish night 

From this terrestrial ball, 
And earth shall see her jubilee, 

And God be all in all." 



[THE END.] 






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